Jude C Zuni
- Maker
- Jude Candelaria attributed, not confirmed
- Struck in
- Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico, USA attributed, not confirmed
- Recorded on
- 1 piece
The mark "Jude C Zuni" is the personal hallmark of contemporary Native American silversmith Jude Candelaria. Hailing from a multi-generational lineage of Zuni lapidaries and silversmiths—including his great-grandfather Juan Calabaza—Candelaria crafts jewelry that blends traditional Zuni stone-setting techniques with modern fabrication and casting methods.
Pieces bearing this mark span a broad array of jewelry forms, including rings, bracelets, belt buckles, pendants, and earrings. Candelaria's work frequently features heavy silver fabrication, tufa casting, and prominent natural turquoise stones or nugget clusters, often accented with hand-carved floral, feather, or hummingbird motifs rather than standard petit point or needlepoint styles alone.
The hallmark is typically stamped directly into the reverse of the silver backing in clean block lettering, frequently accompanied by a separate "STERLING" purity stamp. The inclusion of "Zuni" within the hallmark serves both as an artisan attribution and a tribal provenance identifier, distinguishing his work from other Southwestern silversmiths with the same surname.
Previously sold with this mark
Kept on the record — a maker's back catalogue is most of the evidence that a mark is what we say it is.
If your piece also carries a Mexican assay mark, here is how to date it
Mexico ran two systems and which one a piece carries is itself a date. An eagle's head in profile with a number inside it was compulsory from 1948 and discontinued in 1979, so an eagle puts the piece inside that span. The eagle was drawn in outline until about 1955 and as a solid silhouette after, which narrows it further.
From 1979 the eagle was replaced by a letter-letter-number registry mark that is still in use — TL-67, TF-24. The first letter is the town: T for Taxco, M for Mexico City, G for Guadalajara, C for Cuernavaca. The second is the first letter of the silversmith's surname, and the number is their place in that town's register.
The number does not name the maker on its own. Matching a registration to a person takes the register, and collectors have spent decades doing it one entry at a time. Where we cannot say whose it is, this index says so rather than guessing.
| Struck | Means |
|---|---|
| An eagle mark, any number | 1948–1979 |
| TL-67 | After 1979; Taxco, surname beginning L |
What this entry is based on
- one piece carrying this mark, handled and photographed by this shop Written with the piece in hand. No published hallmark reference covers most of these marks.
Nothing outside this shop has been checked for this mark yet. What is above comes from the pieces themselves and from what was written while they were in hand.
Know something we don't about this mark? Tell us — corrections from collectors are how a reference like this gets better.