the "Mexican Biker Ring" is surrounded with mystery, rumors, fantasy and legend. In years of pursuit of the truth I have heard many tales and uncovered many mysteries. In my travels I have found these rings and met many others who collect and sell them and I have disassembled and even analyzed the metallurgy in the pursuit of the truth. This post will change everything you know and think you know about these rings.

For simplicity I will be grouping these rings into two groups which I call early and late rings, I am sure there was some overlap of styles but for the most part they are easy to tell apart by the material and style of the rings. Early rings are silver with more ornate sculpting while later are alloy based with other alloy findings.

Early rings seem to have arrived in the middle to late 1940s they are well made of Sterling silver,some with brass details, the body of the ring cast using the lost wax method, the 40s in mexico was the heyday of Mexican silver jewelry the ornaments of the time are consistent with popular Mexican design motifs of the era and include military symbols as well as was popular at the wars end.

Early rings will be marked 925 or sterling and SOME of them are marked Mexico or Made in Mexico to comply with Country of Origin importing laws. Since 1936 any item imported into the US was required to be marked clearly to show the country of manufacture, this was not necessary for items sold in Mexico. We will get back to this later.

So why did the rings change from Silver to white bronze (or Alpaca)? In 1948 the Mexican government decided to introduce a national hallmarking control system and started taxing the silver production. This was caused by the booming silver demand around WWII when massive exports to the U.S. and Europe lowered the quality of the silver jewelry, but also because the government together with the National Syndicate of Silversmiths decided to make an income out of this flourishing economy. So if you made sterling jewelry you had to pay the tax. Alpaca or white bronze is made from copper, nickle and zinc and is not taxable.

So now we can address the stories of Tijuana craftsmen hammering these rings out of old worthless Pesos. Nope, in 1947-54 pesos coins were made of silver and didn't change to bronze until after 1960, also the ring bodies and findings are cast or die cast which requires more than roadside hovel equipment, also the later type rings are marked Mexico which indicates that they were made for export in a factory to be sent to the US to be resold.

Enter the Catalog Companies like Johnson Smith Novelties founded in 1914 and still going strong today, they even still sell novelty rings, but after leaving Detroit in the early 70s for Mount Clement and later to Florida any old stash of Mexican rings was lost.

Ok so the rings were made to be sold in the US, but who made them? We have ruled out the small time border craftsman in his clay hut in TJ due to the equipment required ( with the very late chrome plated brass rings even requiring a full chorme shop), but they were made and assembled in Mexico, fine silver was a specialty of Taxco, but this is not fine or silver its crude and made in a factory ..... in Mexico city, for your viewing pleasure the only known Mexican ring boxes, with the makers name and address from Mexico city.

As for the moniker and namesake "biker" ring, I have found very little to substantiate the claims. Bikers in the 50s were more Brando than Hells Angel and any that were rough enough to use brass knuckles chains and knives, normally wouldn't have given a shit about cops not wanting them to have them, US laws place knucks as a misdemeanor the same as fighting without them, and a pair of knucks slips easily into a pocket while fumbling around with 8 rings is a bit of a chore. I would guess the rings sold in the 60s and 70s in Easyrider of big silver skulls and the more regularly seen biker fare could be easily confused with Mexican Novelty rings, I have yet to see a photo of a biker with a bunch of mexican rings on, and any older photos more commonly show a single ring, even though the current fashion may be more. Also I have bought many single rings from estates but never a large collection or grouping from an original owner and many stories of hand downs from family members come as a single ring and from other than outlaw bikers.

The Mystery and rumors of American bikers picking them up in bordertowns just added to the allure of the chunky hardware and fueled the collector fire.