Mexican folk silver is the body of indigenous and regional silverwork produced across Mexico from the Spanish colonial period to the present. It is not a single style but a continuum, with strong local traditions in Taxco, Oaxaca, Yucatan, Michoacan and the central plateau, each of which has its own typology of motifs, alloys and techniques. The category includes everything from filigree earrings and milagros to sturdy domestic flatware and the religious silver of provincial churches.

The historical foundation is the silver economy of New Spain. Mexico became the largest silver producer in the world after the discovery of the great deposits at Zacatecas, Guanajuato, Taxco and Real del Monte in the sixteenth century, and indigenous and mestizo artisans developed regional traditions of working the metal alongside the formal Spanish guild system. By the eighteenth century the colonial silversmith assayer system, marked by the small letter M for Mexico City and a series of locality codes, was well established, and surviving pieces with intact marks are studied closely by historians of decorative arts. After independence in 1821 the formal guild structure dissolved, and folk silver continued in less regulated regional workshops.

The Taxco revival of the twentieth century is the best known chapter, but it is not the whole story. Beyond Taxco, Oaxacan filigree, especially from Yalalag and the city of Oaxaca, developed a distinctive vocabulary of openwork ornaments, double-headed eagles, fish, hummingbirds and the so-called arrancada earring with hanging cascades of small filigree drops. Yucatecan silverwork, often combined with gold-washed wire and coral, draws on Caribbean and Spanish colonial precedents and is associated with the regional terno dress. Michoacan, particularly in the Patzcuaro basin, produced silver fish ornaments, milagros and devotional jewellery with a strong indigenous Purepecha character. The northern states have their own conjunto of conchas and concho-belt forms tied to Spanish colonial horse culture.

The metalwork is generally sterling silver at .925 or somewhat lower in older pieces, hand-fabricated by hammer, file and saw rather than by die or casting in many regional workshops. Filigree is the signature technique in Oaxaca and Yucatan, with twisted and granulated wire built on a sheet base or as openwork. Repousse and chasing are common in the more sculptural Taxco and Michoacan pieces. Stonework, when present, is typically modest: turquoise, coral, amber, obsidian and shell rather than precious gemstones.

The folk-silver tradition was reframed in the twentieth century by figures including William Spratling, Antonio Pineda, Hector Aguilar and the Castillo brothers, who absorbed regional motifs into a recognisably modern jewellery vocabulary, often called the Taxco school. Their work, much of which is now collectible at auction, sits at the boundary between folk silver and modernist jewellery. The boundary is permeable: a 1950s Aguilar piece may use a colonial filigree technique, and a contemporary Yalalag earring may borrow Spratling's rendering of pre-Columbian glyphs.

The market for folk silver in the twenty-first century runs on three layers. The first is the contemporary cooperative output sold through fairs and tourist markets in Taxco, Oaxaca and Mexico City, generally hallmarked with maker initials, the .925 fineness mark and a state code. The second is the secondary market for early and mid-twentieth-century work by named Taxco masters, traded by specialist dealers and auction houses. The third is the antiques market for colonial silver, which intersects the folk-silver category at the lower end and is traded primarily through Mexico City and US dealers.

For the working jeweller, the field rewards careful attention to marks. A piece marked with the eagle assay stamp introduced in 1948 and superseded in 1979 is dateable to that thirty-one-year window. Earlier colonial marks, when intact, are well documented in the Mexican silver hallmark literature, and contemporary work since 1980 carries the alphanumeric maker code and locality code system. Reproduction and pastiche are common, and provenance documentation is the principal protection for the buyer.