Handmade vs. Handcrafted: What the Words Actually Mean

Q: What is the difference between handmade and handcrafted?

Precision. Hand-made is the term the trade attempted to pin to specific requirements about dies, applique, casting and metal fineness. Handcrafted carries no comparable written standard in the sources we hold.

Q: Was older Southwest jewelry all handmade?

No. Tourist-era pieces in particular were often partly handmade and partly machine-made, some mass-produced by Native silversmiths working for the Fred Harvey Company.

"Handmade" and "handcrafted" are governed less tightly than most buyers assume, but they are not lawless words: the FTC’s Jewelry Guides (16 CFR Part 23) treat "handmade" as a claim that the work was shaped entirely by hand labor and manually controlled methods, and a deceptive handmade claim is actionable like any other deceptive claim. The term U.S. law defines most sharply is "Indian‑made": the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 carries criminal and civil penalties for selling work as Indian‑made when it is not. The trade's own written handmade standard dates to 1946.

Mateo's Field Notes

People ask me "is it handmade?" and expect a yes or a no. The honest answer is usually a question back: which part? This is not evasion. The Southwest trade argued about exactly this for a century, and the one time it wrote the answer down in detail, the answer had seven parts and a list of exceptions.

A hand holding a rough turquoise nugget between finger and thumb alongside a finished silver ring with a twisted-wire bezel, above a jeweler's bench scattered with hand tools and papers — The whole argument in one hand: a rough turquoise nugget on the left, a finished ring with a twisted‑wire bezel on the right. Almost nobody disputes that the work between those two states is hand work. The disagreements start with the parts you cannot see — who cut the stone, who made the catch, what buffed the final surface. From the T.Skies Co‑Op bench.

The one time the trade wrote it down

In March 1946 the United Indian Traders Association issued a code of standards for what it called "genuine hand‑made Navajo and Pueblo Indian jewelry," together with a stamp that licensed members could apply to pieces meeting it. The standards were published in several places, including a Desert Magazine article reprinted in Bille Hougart's appendix on the association.¹

What the code required is strict, and it is worth reading closely. Dies had to be "entirely hand‑made by Navajo or Pueblo Indian craftsmen using no tool more mechanical than hand tools and vise," and applied to the object only by those craftsmen "with the aid of nothing more than their hand tools." Every appliqué element had to be entirely hand made. Casting was permitted "only by the sandstone mould (sic) method," where the craftsman carves a mold that is itself "entirely hand made only by simple hand tools." Silver had to be nine hundred fineness (coin) or better. Stones had to be genuine, "uncolored and untreated by any artificial means."¹

Now the part that surprises people. That same code expressly allowed machinery. Findings — "pin stems, catches, joints, ear wires, tie holders, spring rings, jump rings, clips, clasps, chain, etc." — "may be made mechanically of any metal by Indians or others." Stones "may be cut and polished by Indians or others without restriction as to method or equipment used." And once a piece was finished, it "may be cleaned, buffed and polished by Indians or others without restriction as to methods or equipment used."¹

So the strictest handmade standard this trade ever wrote for itself permitted a machine‑made clasp, a machine‑cut stone and a machine‑buffed finish on a piece it was willing to call genuine hand‑made. "Handmade" has never meant that no machine touched the object. It meant that the forming and decorating of the silver was done by hand, by a particular person, with hand tools.

A silversmith in a leather apron and magnifying visor leaning over a wooden jeweler's bench, cutting metal with a hand-held jeweler's saw — A jeweler's saw is the plainest test case there is: the cut is exactly as straight as the hand that guides it. The 1946 code drew its line at roughly this point — hand tools and a vise for shaping and decorating, with machinery allowed for findings, stone cutting and final polishing. From the T.Skies Co‑Op bench.

The word that does have legal teeth

While "handmade" sits in trade custom, a different claim sits in federal law. The Indian Arts and Crafts Board was created by Congress in 1935 to promote the economic development of American Indians and Alaska Natives through expansion of the Indian arts and crafts market. A top priority of that Board is enforcement of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990, described by the Heard Museum's library as "a truth‑in‑advertising law that provides criminal and civil penalties for marketing products as 'Indian‑made' when such products are not made by Indians."² What that Act prohibits, and who counts as Indian under it, is covered separately in Indian Arts and Crafts Act Explained.

That is the practical asymmetry a buyer should carry. "Handcrafted" is an adjective. "Indian‑made" is a representation with penalties attached to it. If the thing you care about is who made the piece, ask the question in the terms the law recognizes.

Why the trade kept trying to fix this

The 1946 code was not the first attempt. The United Indian Traders Association had been established in September 1931 "for the expressed purpose of authentication of Indian crafts," and it advertised itself as "organized for the perpetuation and protection of handmade Indian arts and crafts." The association also supported the Federal Trade Commission's prosecution of companies for using false advertising and other misleading practices.¹

The government tried too. The Indian Arts and Crafts Board established standards for silver in 1936–37 and began marking silver to those standards in the spring of 1938. It did not hold. The stamping initiative was, in Hougart's account, "essentially unenforceable" against a marketplace of that size and structure; official use of the Board's stamps ended quietly in 1943.¹

One more piece of housekeeping, because the acronyms collide and sellers still cite them loosely. The Indian Arts and Crafts Board is the federal agency created in 1935, still operating. The Indian Arts and Crafts Association was an international trade association based in Gallup, New Mexico, founded in 1974, and it ceased operation around 2018.² A current certification offered in that association's name deserves a hard question. Note also that the initials "IACA" are used both for the Association and, commonly, for the Act of 1990 itself — which is reason enough to write out whichever body or statute you actually mean.

Most old pieces are honestly "both"

The tidy handmade-or-machine split also fails historically. Describing early twentieth‑century tourist pieces, the Turnbaughs note examples that "have some handwork to them, though they are mostly machine‑made," and others decorated with die stamping that were "partly handmade and partly machine‑made and were mass‑produced by Indian employees of the Fred Harvey Company."³

Those pieces were made by Native silversmiths, in volume, with machine assistance. They are collectible on their own terms. But no single word on a tag describes them correctly, which is the whole problem with buying by adjective.

Extreme close-up of the hallmark of Navajo silversmith Aaron Anderson cut into a silver surface, the letters sitting at slightly uneven depths and angles — The hallmark of Navajo silversmith Aaron Anderson, photographed close. The letters sit at slightly different depths and angles — the ordinary signature of a mark put there by a person rather than printed. A mark is not proof of anything on its own, but it is the thread that ties a piece to a named maker, which is the question worth asking. From the T.Skies gallery.

Collector's Handbook

Ask which parts, not whether. "Was the silver formed and stamped by hand?" is answerable. "Is it handmade?" is not, and a seller who answers it briskly either has not thought about it or is counting on you not to.¹
Machine‑cut stones and commercial findings are normal. Even the 1946 standard allowed both on a piece it certified as genuine hand‑made. Finding a commercial clasp on a bracelet tells you nothing bad by itself.¹
"Indian‑made" is the claim with consequences. It is defined and penalized under the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990; "handcrafted" is not.²
Do not read the 1946 code as current law. It was a voluntary trade standard tied to a licensed stamp, and the association that wrote it is long past its stamping era. It is useful as evidence of what the words meant to the people using them, not as a rule in force today.¹
Expect "both" from tourist‑era work. Fred Harvey‑era pieces were frequently part hand work and part machine work, made by Native silversmiths in volume.³

Common questions

Is "handmade" legally defined for jewelry?

Not in the way buyers assume. The detailed definition this trade actually wrote down is the United Indian Traders Association's 1946 code for "genuine hand‑made Navajo and Pueblo Indian jewelry," a voluntary standard tied to a licensed stamp rather than a statute.¹ The federal law in this area regulates the claim "Indian‑made," not the word "handmade."²

What is the difference between handmade and handcrafted?

In practice, precision. "Hand‑made" is the term the trade attempted to pin to specific requirements about dies, appliqué, casting and metal fineness.¹ "Handcrafted" carries no comparable written standard in the sources we hold, which is exactly why it appears so often in advertising.

Does the IACA certify jewelry as handmade?

The Indian Arts and Crafts Association, founded in Gallup, New Mexico in 1974, ceased operation around 2018.² Do not accept a current certification in its name without asking what body actually issued it. The Indian Arts and Crafts Board, a federal agency created in 1935, is a different organization and is still operating.²

Was older Southwest jewelry all handmade?

No. Tourist‑era pieces in particular were often "partly handmade and partly machine‑made," some of them mass‑produced by Native silversmiths working for the Fred Harvey Company.³ Age is not a synonym for hand work.

We strive for accuracy. This guide entry is compiled from the published references cited above and is continuously updated as our library grows. See something inaccurate, or know more about the trade’s handmade standards? Get in touch — corrections are welcomed and credited.

References

Hougart, Bille. 100 Collectible Native American Silversmiths and Their Hallmarks. TBR International, Inc., 2020. Printed p. 137 (the United Indian Traders Association code of standards, reprinted there from a Desert Magazine article); printed p. 135 (association founded 1931, its support of Federal Trade Commission prosecutions, and its advertising language); printed pp. 133–134 (Indian Arts and Crafts Board silver standards of 1936–37, marking begun spring 1938, and the end of official stamp use in 1943).
Heard Museum, Billie Jane Baguley Library and Archives. Native American Artists Resource Collection: General Files, thesaurus generated August 30, 2024. Our scan p. 91 (Indian Arts and Crafts Board; Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990; Indian Arts and Crafts Association).
Turnbaugh, William A. & Sarah Peabody Turnbaugh. Indian Jewelry of the American Southwest. Schiffer, Atglen PA, © 1996 and 2007. Our scan p. 28 (tourist‑era pieces combining hand work and machine work).