C. G. Wallace — Southwest Jewelry Trading Post & Marks

C. G. Wallace — name card, T.Skies Southwest Jewelry Guide

Name-card placeholder — historic shop-mark imagery to follow. © Turquoise Skies Inc.

Trader & trading posts · Zuni, Gallup & Albuquerque, New Mexico · active 1928–1964 · Southwest Jewelry Guide

Overview

Charles Garrett ("C. G.") Wallace (1898–1993) owned and operated retail and trading companies at Zuni, Gallup and Albuquerque, including trading posts in Sanders and Cedar Point, Arizona. Per Hougart, in 1928 the Charles Ilfeld Company bankrolled Wallace's first trading post at Zuni — the C. G. Wallace Trading Store — through a line of merchandise credit.

Hougart records that Wallace "employed, or purchased products from, over 500 Zuni or Navajo artisans throughout his long career. He provided tools and raw materials to the artisans and encouraged execution of numerous styles, including channel and mosaic inlay, needlepoint and cluster work." In 1958 Wallace sold the Zuni store to trader Richard Vanderwagen, but continued to run his stores at Sanders and Cedar Point and another outlet in Gallup. He ceased all operations in 1964.

The Wallace collection later became a landmark market event: Rosnek & Stacey describe bidders at the C. G. Wallace collection sale pursuing "the good rings and the early bracelets and certainly the Leekya turquoise fetishes and the fetish necklaces."

The marks

"Marks: U. S. ZUNI 1; U.S. NAVAJO 2 (this mark was used on many items sold at Wallace's stores at Sanders and Cedar Point, and perhaps elsewhere; see Cedar Point Trading Post); UITA 2; a UITA label" — Hougart, Bille. Native American and Southwestern Silver Hallmarks, 5th ed. (2022), p. ~373.

Hougart adds a caution: a handful of hallmarks used by Navajo silversmiths working for Wallace "have yet to be positively identified" — candidates include Little Joe Begay, Charlie Bitsui, Austin Wilson and Little Joe Yauie.

Artists connected to C. G. Wallace

Per Hougart: Dan Simplicio worked in nugget-style in the 1940s with C. G. Wallace at Zuni; Ambrose Roanhorse worked for Wallace in the 1930s; Ambrose Lincoln also worked for Wallace; and Austin Wilson is among the smiths who may have used the unidentified Wallace-shop stamps. Leo Poblano sold most of his work through Wallace's operation. The carver Leekya Deyuse is tied to Wallace's world through the celebrated turquoise fetishes in the Wallace collection sale — no corpus source states directly that Leekya worked for Wallace.

References

Hougart, Bille. Native American and Southwestern Silver Hallmarks, 5th ed. Schiffer Publishing, 2022. Shops section, p. ~373.
Rosnek, Carl, and Joseph Stacey. Skystone and Silver: The Collector's Book of Southwest Indian Jewelry. Prentice-Hall, 1976. Wallace collection sale discussion.