Peru Gold & Silver - Antique Incan Relics at Larco Museum in Lima + Modern Made Peruvian Metalworks

[00:00:01][music] Hi, it's Greg Arpetine here at the Silver Museum. Today I'm in Peru and we're going to be exploring the silver and gold that was made in this country.

[00:00:15]We're going to be including gold and silver made by ancient cultures as well as pieces that are still modern made that are still readily available in tourist markets. Our trip began in June of 2026 and we visited Cusco, Lima, and the Cordiera Blanca regions of Peru. One of our first stops was the ancient Incan city of Machu Picchu. The tourist town below Machu Picchu is called Awa's Caliente, and it's where I first discovered an incredible group of silver. This small jewelry store called Elser Jewelry mostly just sells silver pendants, rings, and other touristy types of silver jewelry pieces as well as rocks and gems. However, to my delight, in the back of the store, I discovered a small case that contained silver and gold incan statues. These gold and silver statues are faithfully reproduced and take hours and hours of work to create. They are made of 950 silver which is 95% silver and then they are goldplated with 18 karat gold. The average price of these statues range between $1,200 to $1,500 US for the very very large Incan chief sitting in a throne. They were asking $25,000 for him.

[00:01:52]I found two statues that I really, really liked, one of a man and one of a woman, and I was hoping to negotiate 25 to 30% off. However, the shopkeeper, she was really tough about that, and I only ended up getting 10% off, but I was still pretty happy with my purchase.

[00:02:14]Here are the two statues I purchased for $2,200 US. This statue depicts the ancient condor dance. Look at the detail work on the feathers and on the stone setting.

[00:02:29]Everything is just exquisitely handworked and crafted. It's an unbelievable piece. This Incan chief is also an extraordinary work of silver artistry. Just the level of craftsmanship and detail work is almost unparalleled.

[00:02:50]The only company that I can even think of that even comes remotely close to this level of quality is Balotti of Italy. And if you notice on these statues here, look at the hair on the pieces, the coil work that comes out of here is very similar to Buchelotti's furry creatures collection, which each item takes hours and hours of work. So, these pieces are just really, really extraordinary.

[00:03:23]I ended up paying about $250 per troy ounce on these pieces, but compared to Balotti, that would be a bargain because their retail price on similar quality pieces is about $1,000 per troy ounce.

[00:03:42]My next encounter of fabulous gold and silver was in a store located in Cusco called Inca Treasure. The store had more than one location located in the historic city center of Cusco. Their outside display windows depicted fullsize figures of Incan warriors and chiefs. The store primarily sells Incan jewelry and artifacts faithfully reproduced with the same techniques that were made back hundreds of years ago.

[00:04:20]The pieces are made of copper but then are goldplated with 18 karat gold. And I was very impressed by the quality and detail work that each piece seemed to be artfully made with. We just happened to be in Cusco during the ini rey 2026 festival of the sun which we attended and really enjoyed.

[00:04:46]The festival at Sakai Wulaman really depicted quite a few of the Incan warriors, chiefs and cultural icons.

[00:04:56]After seeing the festival, it really put me in the mood to want to purchase some really incredible high-end gold souvenirs that depicted Peruvian culture. Here are the two items I ended up purchasing from the store for about $500 US. This ancient incan chief and drinking vessel were pretty cool, I thought. And they were much better quality than you could find on the street from street vendors because most of those pieces were just made of brass and they didn't have the gold plating like these pieces had. Another interesting treasure trove of silver pieces that I encountered in Peru was at a store chain called which had stores all around the country.

[00:05:48]These retail stores sell a combination of jewelry, giftear, and silver statues that depict Peruvian culture. The jewelry prices seemed on par with comparable US stores like Pandora, Kendra Scott, and other types of places like that. What really stood out for me to see in this jewelry store chain was their incredible selection of Peruvian and Incan handmade statues that mostly just had a combination of silver and wood. The prices on these statues varied from between $500 US to up to $3,000 US for some of the very larger pieces. They didn't really have any of the more intricate all silver pieces that had the 18 karat gold plating. However, they did have some very high-end silver frames.

[00:06:51]One frame in particular, the sales lady told me cost $2,800.

[00:06:59]And then on the mirror that was on the wall, I saw she quoted me $10,000 on this piece.

[00:07:09]Up to this point in the video, I've only really covered modernade reproduced pieces of Incan and Peruvian silver and gold. However, now we are going to be visiting the Larco Museum which is in Lima, Peru, which has some incredible ancient relics and artifacts of Incan culture.

[00:07:35]In Inca culture, gold and silver were not used as currency, but instead held profound spiritual significance. Gold was revered as sweat of the sun linked to the sun god Ini while silver was tears of the moon linked to the moon goddess Mama. These metals represented cosmic duality and divine power.

[00:08:03]This piece is a ceremonial bottle made by the Shimu in the year 1300 AD. It has a double spout and bridge bottle with step decoration on the handle and the base. Here is a ceremonial bowl also made by the Shimu in the year 1300 AD.

[00:08:21]These fabulous ceremonial vessels were made by the Lambbeck in the year 800 AD.

[00:08:27]On these vessels, the face of a deity with feline fangs and winged eyes can clearly be seen when the pieces held upside down. They are made out of gold, silver, and copper.

[00:08:42][music] >> Here is a group of ceremonial goblets that were made in the year 1532 AD.

[00:08:54]These cups were usually used by high ranking individuals in the presentation of ritual liquids or drinks.

[00:09:04]This is a group of ceremonial bottles made by the Shimu in the year 1300 AD of silver.

[00:09:20]>> Here we have an amazing pair of ceremonial bowls also made by the Shimu in the year 1300 AD. made out of gold with designs of human faces, animals, and other types of shell type decorations.

[00:09:39]This next item is absolutely extraordinary. It's a gilded copper shirt from the year 800 AD. Ceremonial shirts were important symbols of power and status. The most elaborate examples featured plaques made from precious metals which would shine and rattle as the wearer move. These shirts were also used to clothe the rulers after death.

[00:10:09]This is a group of ceremonial knives or tumies made in the year 1532.

[00:10:15]Knives or tumies are depicted in mythological combat scenes as a weapon used by supernatural beings to decapitate their adversaries.

[00:10:27]These next pieces are basically clothing, jewelry, and adornments worn by rulers. In all ancient societies, the elite employed ways of defining themselves. In ancient Peru, leaders would dress and adorn themselves with articles exclusive to their social rank.

[00:10:50]When these rulers died, they took with them into the afterlife objects which expressed their way of seeing the world.

[00:10:59]They were interred with the ritual attire which had identified their rank during life and which had marked them out as a descendants of the gods. Their identity transcended their earthly existence and accompanied them into the next world. After death, these rulers would be transformed into ancestors who would share a place in the celestial world with the gods. Smiths, weavers, pottery makers, and other specialist artisans dedicated their abilities and skills, as well as a great deal of their time and energy to dressing and decorating their lords, both in life and after death. To a great extent, they were responsible for the success of the journey made by their lords into the next world. For they were entrusted with the manufacturer of objects of highly symbolic devotional and mystical importance.

[00:12:17]>> [music] >> Here we have some amazing gold headdresses made by the Moshe between the year 1 AD and 800 AD. Headdresses made from gold and alloys of gold, silver and copper decorated the heads of the most important individuals in the Moshe society. These faces appear flanked by birds such as the condor or by elements that suggest feathered ornaments. Other mythological creatures are also represented such as the crusted feline which like a dragon is composed of a combination of feline bird and serpent features. This is a group of silver crowns and adornments made by the Shimu between the year 1300 AD and 1532 AD. Silver was first worked around 3,000 years ago, but it was during the height of the Shimu Empire from the 12th to 15th century that such exploitation reached its greatest level of technological sophistication.

[00:13:36]This ornate gold headdress was also made by the Shimu between the year 1300 AD and 1532 AD.

[00:14:09]This last piece that we are going to be looking at in the museum is the only known complete set of gold Shimu clothing in the museums and private collections of the world. It was made between the year 1300 AD and 1532 AD. It expresses all the great splendor of the power enjoyed by the ruler who wore it together with his symbolic relationship with the sun.

[00:14:48]Well, the Larco Museum also had one incredible souvenir shop which contained many objects and artifacts that were faithfully reproduced that represented many of the pieces that were displayed in its collection.

[00:15:05]It was toward the end of my trip and my suitcase and luggage was getting pretty full. So, unfortunately, I wasn't very tempted at this point to buy any more souvenirs, although they were very gorgeous pieces.

[00:15:25]My family and I did have dinner at the Larco Museum, and to our surprise, it was quite an extraordinary culinary dining experience.

[00:15:36]We especially love their desserts. We had fla trace leches and an incredible apple dessert.

[00:15:48]Circling back to Cusco, Peru, in the year 2003, my husband and I visited the city and we enjoyed looking at all the beautiful sites and attractions that it offered.

[00:16:03]We did come across one store that sold these beautiful Peruvian Incan silver statues and I looked at this one in particular and fell in love with it. But at the time my financial might wasn't quite as good. And I also wasn't quite appreciative of the handwork and the cost involved. So, when I saw it for sale for $2,500, I just decided, "No, I don't want this."

[00:16:35]However, ever since that trip, for the last 23 years, I have often thought about this Incan statue. So on the trip when we came back here in the year 2026, I was keeping my eyes open to see if I could find something similar. And then finally, there was a little shop that we came across in Cusco where I saw him.

[00:17:07]The same statue, almost the same statue that I had seen 23 years ago. So when I saw it, I was like, "Okay, I've waited 23 years and I'm going to buy you."

[00:17:22]This fabulous Incan archer is made of 950 silver, which is 95% silver. He also measures 10.5 in tall and has a span of 9 in wide. He also weighs 12.73 troy o.

[00:17:44]He's also plated with 18 karat gold and is embellished with many, many different stone settings, all painstakingly done by hand. The asking price on this incredible silver and gold statue was $3,000 US. I tried my best to negotiate a lower price, but this again was another shop owner who was not willing to budge very much. So eventually we just agreed upon $2,800.

[00:18:20]Valuewise, this equates to about $220 per troy ounce, which sounds like a lot of money, but comparing it to other manufacturers like Buchalatti or George Jensen or other high-end makers, they would easily have charged $1,000 to maybe even $1,500 per troy ounce. So, comparing it to those manufacturers, it was quite a bargain. After I made the purchase, the shopkeeper shook my hand and congratulated me. And she went on to tell me that the piece took three different artists over a 4month period to create the piece with a calculated amount of hours of 300 hours of labor to make it. And as a silver dealer, as well as being an avid collector, I follow searches on eBay and other places. And I'll have to just say that I've almost never ever seen a piece like this ever offered. I think people who purchase these just don't ever want to sell them, basically. So, if you're ever in the market to purchase a Peruvian statue that is handsomely decorated and beautifully ornate like this piece is, you're basically just going to have to make a trip to Peru and visit Cusco or Lima and hunt one down like I did.

[00:19:52]Another huge category for gold and silver located in Peru is actually inside of their incredible churches and cathedrals.

[00:20:03]I have visited cathedrals and churches like the Vatican, St. Paul's, and other places like museums that carry church and religious silver. But I'll have to say that the pieces I saw inside of these churches and cathedrals in Peru were just mindblowing. There were just huge altars made of silver and all the pieces that I saw not only just had gold and silver, but they were also gem encrusted. So, I guess it's maybe because the Spanish had so much gold and silver coming out of those mines there that they were just not too stingy about making sure that their churches that they had there just had the equal opulence of what they were mining. The Spanish also had the luxury of having these very very skilled artisans of the Incan Empire that had created many many objects and artifacts for hundreds of years. So when they were employed or should I say enslaved to basically produce altars and other objects of art for the churches, their craftsmanship was like no other. They really could put in a lot of detail work and just master craft things that nobody else in the world could even do. So these churches really had the advantage of both an abundance of metals as well as an abundance of highly qualified and skilled artisans that could create these objects. When we were in Peru, we actually took a couple different guided tours of different cathedrals there. And one other really interesting fact that I learned about was the fact that the Catholic Church was not quite as standardized throughout the world as most people would guess. In Peru, they actually customized certain things in the church to appeal to the indigenous Incan cultures that live there. For example, when they showed Jesus, he was not a white Caucasian Jesus, but instead he was more brown and sometimes even depicted as black. There were other differences as well. For example, when you see Mary and Jesus, a lot of times when you see their clothing, you'll notice that the clothing is actually more of an Incan design versus just the standardized European or Arabic clothing that you typically see when Jesus and the nativity and other scenes are depicted.

[00:23:11]So, if you are of Christian or Catholic faith like I am and you are visiting Peru, you're definitely going to want to get inside of some of these larger cathedrals just to take a look at these impressive objects of religious art. And it's just interesting, like I said, too, to notice the differences and variations from the standardized model of the Vatican versus what they put in here in South America.

[00:23:42]Well, hey, it's Greg Arbitine here again with the Silver Museum. This is pretty much a wrap of our video, and I hope you enjoyed learning about the silver and gold of Peru. And if you have any comments you would like to make, please feel free to do so. And also, if you like the video, please, please hit like.

[00:24:05]I also want to put out there that we at the Silver Museum LLC are very interested in buying anything that you have made of gold or silver from Peru.

[00:24:20]We primarily would like to have the more ornate items like I'd shown in the video with the statues and gold, but we buy anything. So, if it's even just a scrap piece, we'll be happy to make you our fair and competitive offer. We also buy all Americanmade silver made by Tiffany, Gorum, Reeden Barton, George Sheebler, uh you name it, we probably buy it. And we buy, of course, European silver made by Germany, England, Wales, um, Italian. So, pretty much anything silver, we we basically want it and can make usually pretty good competitive offers. So, if you have anything that you would like to sell to us, please go ahead and get together a list of what you have and then take a few cell phone pictures. Go ahead and email those to greg that's spelled gregs museum.org or you can call or text us at 8137894734.

[00:25:36]Well again we are very happy that you watched our video and if you have something to sell we would be very happy to work with you. So, please contact us whenever you feel like you can and we would love to do business with you. So, again, thanks for watching the video and I hope you have a nice day. Bye-bye.

[00:26:46]>> [music] [music] [music] >> Where your tongue?

[00:28:19][music] >> [music] >> I wish I knew these dances.

[00:28:45][music] Close the window. Woo! [music] [cheering] [music] [music] >> [music] >> Happy [music] [music] birthday.

[00:29:34]Those [music] [music] are some weird looking.

[00:29:52][music] >> [music] >> Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

[00:30:17][music] Hey, [music] hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, [music] hey, hey, hey.

[00:30:41][music] >> [music] [music] >> We have more than 800 types of the potatoes.

[00:31:14]800. But Incas have more than 3,000 different types of the potatoes. But we have only one famous potatoes from [music] >> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Come on.

[00:32:08]>> [music] [music] >> Hallelujah.

[00:32:24]Hallelujah.

[00:32:33]Happy birthday to you.

[00:32:49]>> [music] >> I know it's coming. [music] [music] >> [music] [music] >> I believe the Baby.

[00:34:04]>> [music] >> Hallelujah.

[00:34:09]Hallelujah.

[00:34:18][music] >> [music] [music] [music] >> How easy is California? [music] Are you going [music] to go and do it? Heat. Heat.

[00:35:26]Heat. Heat. [music] Hallelujah.

[00:35:57][music] Hallelujah.

[00:36:21][music] Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, >> narcissist.

[00:37:00]Everybody.

[00:37:02]Jordan.

[00:37:44]Oh.

[00:37:53]Oh.

[00:38:18]Hey, baby.

[00:38:42]It's not Yeah,