Unidentified mark on 1930s cufflinks ? Please Help

[rob h]

Please help identify the makers marks on these cufflinks. There is no eagle mark or maker number and city code mark ? are these from the 1930s and whose mark is it ? The mark looks like a V inside a C. On the bottom of the back of the cufflink it is stamped Silver Made in Mexico. All comments are appreciated !

[ValkyrieVixen]

Mexican jewelry is always marked Mexico in some way, even the early stuff. The design is similar to some done there but these aren't. Can't help with the mark, sorry.

[rob h]

it is stamped "silver" and underneath that "Made in Mexico" on the lower half of the back of the cuff link. I thought it better to have a close-up of the mark rather than show the whole back of the cufflink.

[admin]

Just for the record, Mexican jewelry is not "always marked Mexico in some way". Pieces made for sale in Mexico sometime include the country name and all pieces made for export to the U.S. should be marked so, however lack of a "Mexico" mark never eliminates Mexico as a country of origin.

Regards, Tom

[ValkyrieVixen]

In the 100's of pieces of Mexican jewelry I have handled only ONE was not marked Mexico in some way and that was because it was an unfinished piece with only part of the stamp on it. I only knew it was Mexican because of having another piece with the full mark.
Bille Hougart even mentions in her book The Little Book of Mexican Silver Trade and Hallmarks that it is "virtually impossible" to find a piece not marked Mexico or with a town name.
There are many pieces attributed to Mexico based on design when they are actually Scandinavian or American in origin because of the misconception that anything pre-1948 was not marked. There is a lot of crossover in design so that alone is not enough to verify origin.

The OP sent me a message that the cufflinks are stamped Silver Made in Mexico on a lower part of the piece.

[admin]

Hi VV,
Above are five examples of well known marks on Mexican pieces, none of which bear a Mexico, Taxco or DF stamp. To gather them together, I went through about 80 or 90 item photos on my harddrive.

Granted, 5 out of 90 is a small percentage, but it indicates that Hougart's alleged "virtually impossible" is, at best, an overstatement and your contention that, "Mexican jewelry is always marked Mexico in some way, even the early stuff.", even farther off the mark.

One important guideline I've learned in my years of running this website is that in the world of silver marks, absolutes like "always" and "never" just don't seem to work and the easiest way to find an exception to any rule is simply to state that none exist. Of course, I learned this the hard way :)

Regards, Tom

[ValkyrieVixen]

The eagle mark is one of the "some way" that pieces from Mexico are marked so those 2 are marked to indicate Mexico. Like the OP's cufflinks there are also a lot of pieces that have other marks that aren't near the artisan mark so maybe the pics you have aren't showing all the marks on the piece?
I may have been overzealous in saying "always" but there are soooo many pieces I come across attributed to Mexico, just because they are silver but actually have nothing to do with Mexico, I get frustrated. Even cheap alpaca tourist junk says Mexico on it. It really is very rare to find a piece that doesn't have some sort of mark showing it's origin so people shouldn't be so quick to call it Mexican is my point I guess.