Ike Wilson — Navajo Silversmith Hallmark

Name card for Ike Wilson — T.Skies Silversmith Directory

Name-card placeholder — hallmark imagery to follow.

Navajo · documented in the T.Skies hallmark library

Ike Wilson (c.1900–1942; Navajo) was active from the 1920s through 1942. His techniques included fabricated silverwork, set stones, stamp work, twisted wire, and repoussé. He produced jewelry, flatware, hollowware, and miniatures.

According to an interview John Adair conducted with Ike Wilson in 1939, Wilson owned several hundred hand-made stamps. Wilson worked for many years with the Kelsey Trading Company near Zuni, beginning about 1925. He also did work for C. G. Wallace, John Kirk, and Mike Kirk, and did silverwork for lapidary artists at C. G. Wallace, including Ida Vacit Poblano and Teddy Weahkee.

His wife and likely collaborator in silver work was Katherine Wilson, who used his stamp after his death in 1942. A corrected attribution published in Messier (2014) showed that the bow-and-arrow stamp belongs to Ike and Katherine Wilson — not to Ike alone, as had been previously attributed. (Barton Wright [2000] had also attributed the stamp to Austin Wilson, but Messier [2014] corrected this.) Ike Wilson was the brother-in-law of Charlie Bitsui.

The mark

"Bow and arrow [the stamp may also be interpreted as a bow; the bowstring is likely the result of a broken stamp]"

The mark is a bow-and-arrow stamp. Corrected attribution (Messier, 2014) places this mark as belonging to Ike and Katherine Wilson; Katherine continued using it after Ike's death.

References

Hougart, Bille. Native American and Southwestern Silver Hallmarks, 5th ed. Schiffer Publishing, 2022. Entry approx. p. ~29830.
Adair, John. The Navajo and Pueblo Silversmiths. University of Oklahoma Press, 1944. (Interview with Ike Wilson, 1939, cited in Hougart.)
Messier, 2014 (corrected attribution for bow-and-arrow stamp, cited in Hougart 5e).

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