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Materials and cultures

What we buy

Pre-Columbian art from the Americas, made before European contact: single pieces and whole collections. The pieces pictured are from our own collection, each with a documented history: the standard we look for in what we buy.

Large Nazca jar in red, ochre and black: a modelled head in a rimmed hat over a painted body, where a being with a lolling tongue holds a small figure

Ceramics

Painted and modelled pottery, from vessels and figurines to whistles and effigies: the polychrome vases of the Maya, the portrait vessels of the Moche, the dogs of Colima.

What we look for

Fine painting and modelling, portrait and story scenes, complete pieces, and groups that stayed together in one old collection.

Tall Nazca jar in red-brown, cream and black: a modelled face with wide eyes and a long tongue under a banded cap, over a body painted with small figures
Effigy jar: a mythical being holding a small figure and trophy heads. Nazca, Peru.
Dark brown Maya vessel in the form of a seated figure with folded arms, a grimacing face under an elaborate headdress and incised glyphs across the lap
Three-part effigy vessel: a seated figure with folded arms and a glyph panel on the lap. Maya, Early Classic.
Large round Paracas jar, black below and painted in red and cream around the shoulder, where a modelled face sits above a figure in relief, on the dark ground
Large globular funerary jar with a figure in relief. Paracas, Peru.

Stone and jade

Carved jade, greenstone and other hard stone: masks, pectorals, axe-heads and figures, and larger sculpture and ceremonial grinding tables.

What we look for

Strong carving, good colour and polish, and pieces with a record of earlier owners.

Gold and metalwork

Cast and hammered gold, tumbaga and copper: pendants, ear and lip ornaments, plaques and necklaces from Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Peru and Mexico.

What we look for

Complete pieces with their original surface, and groups of beads or ornaments that belong together.

Shell

Worked and carved shell, above all Spondylus: ornaments, pendants, inlaid pieces, necklaces and trumpets.

What we look for

Bright colour, fine carving, and inlay with its stones still in place.

Pieces many collections hold

A collection does not have to look like a museum's. These are kinds of piece that many collections hold, and each is as welcome as a rarer one.

  • Colima dogs and animals

    Glossy red dogs and other animal figures from the tombs of West Mexico.

  • Nayarit and Jalisco figures

    Standing and seated figures with painted faces, from the shaft tombs of West Mexico.

  • Nazca painted vessels

    Bottles, bowls and beakers painted in many colours on the south coast of Peru.

  • Chimu blackware

    Polished black vessels from the north coast of Peru.

However you know it

People describe what they hold in many ways: Mayan or Aztec pottery, Inca or Peruvian artifacts, figurines, tomb figures, antiquities, or jade, gold and shell brought back from a trip to Mexico, Central America or the Andes. If it came from the Americas and may be older than European contact, it is what we buy. Write to us, and we say plainly what it is and whether we can take it.

Not sure yours qualifies?

You do not have to know. These are the cases people hesitate over, and each is welcome to write.

  • Only part of a collection. Tell us which pieces you would like to keep and which you are ready to sell, and send photographs of those first.
  • Pieces you inherited. You do not need to know what they are. A few photographs and whatever the family remembers are enough.
  • A piece you cannot identify. Write what you were told, even a label or a family story, and say you are not sure. We tell you what we see.
  • Broken, repaired or restored. It does not rule a piece out. Photograph the damage and any repair you know of.
  • A mixed group. Send the pre-Columbian pieces first and mention the rest. We say plainly which we can take.
  • A piece we cannot take. We say so plainly, with the reason. It costs you nothing to ask.

An offer comes only after we have seen what you have, and you decide whether to accept it.

The cultures we know best

These are where we begin. Dates are approximate; chronologies differ by region and author. The map of the cultures shows where each one lived.

Olmec
Gulf Coast of Mexico (Veracruz and Tabasco) · c. 1200-400 BCE
Maya
Southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador · Classic period, c. 250-900 CE
Teotihuacan
Central Mexico · c. 100 BCE-550 CE
Zapotec
Oaxaca, Mexico · c. 500 BCE-800 CE
Mixtec
Oaxaca and Puebla, Mexico · c. 900-1521 CE
Aztec (Mexica)
Central Mexico · c. 1300-1521 CE
Veracruz
Gulf Coast of Mexico · c. 300-900 CE
Colima
West Mexico · c. 100 BCE-300 CE
Nayarit
West Mexico · c. 100 BCE-300 CE
Jalisco
West Mexico · c. 300 BCE-300 CE
Chupicuaro
Guanajuato, Mexico · c. 400 BCE-200 CE
Moche
North coast of Peru · c. 100-800 CE
Nazca
South coast of Peru · c. 100 BCE-800 CE
Chimu
North coast of Peru · c. 900-1470 CE
Inca
Andes of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile and Argentina · c. 1400-1533 CE
Chancay
Central coast of Peru · c. 1000-1470 CE
Wari
Highlands of Peru · c. 600-1000 CE
Tiwanaku
Lake Titicaca basin, Bolivia and Peru · c. 500-1000 CE
Paracas
South coast of Peru · c. 800-100 BCE
Chavin
Highlands and coast of Peru · c. 900-200 BCE
Vicus
Piura, northern Peru · c. 100 BCE-300 CE
Chiripa
Lake Titicaca basin, Bolivia · c. 1500 BCE-100 CE
Valdivia
Coast of Ecuador · c. 3500-1800 BCE
Jama-Coaque
Coast of Ecuador · c. 350 BCE-400 CE
Tairona
Caribbean coast of Colombia · c. 900-1600 CE
Quimbaya
Cauca valley, Colombia · c. 500 BCE-1600 CE
Taino
Greater Antilles · c. 1200-1500 CE

Something not listed

Write to us anyway. The list is where we begin, not where we stop, and we will tell you plainly whether we can take what you have. Andean textiles, obsidian, wood and bone often sit in a collection beside the ceramics; send photographs of those too.

Not sure what you hold? What is my piece? shows the kinds that turn up most often.

Have something to sell?

Send us photographs and whatever you know. You hear back within two working days.

Tell us what you have

Or write straight to info@precolumbian.com

Round Maya lid-plate in brown clay, carved and incised with a figure among scrolls and glyph cartouches, seen from above at an angle on the dark ground