About the Seller
We have been selling superior Tumbaga (copper gold alloy) since June 2003. At that time, we started searching and discovering the most unusual objects in South America that other sellers cannot find.
We started traveling to South America in 1991 when travel advisories were common. We explored several countries in Central and South America. Specifically, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Peru were the countries where we discovered pre-Columbian art. That's when we became fascinated with the art and metal skills the Indigenous peoples of those area had in creating and forming metal art of gold and copper. We even studied the several tribes and skills in mostly Colombia where the diversity of art was greater. The Tairona, Sinu, Calima Quimbaya and others work with gold and copper. We also specialize in finding art dealers and collectors in many parts of Colombia.
Our tumbagas can run from 8 grams to 7500 grams. All of our art have documentation or the heritage foundation of every country which we need in order to export the goods to the United States for distribution.
Our Official eBay Account
We have an active selection of tumbaga currently on sales in our official eBay account.
Categories
Pendants & Necklaces
Small tumbaga or jewelry generally apply to both pendants and necklaces. They were made with loops. If the have a loop it is considered a pendant no matter how large. They can run from 5 grams to 200 grams and up. The price may vary from $2.00 to 4.00 a gram. Pectorals are also used to hang around the neck. They were used by the Shamans or royalty. Price may vary from $3.00 a gram and up. Because they sell quickly, most of these products are currently available on our official eBay page.
Medium Tumbaga
Our medium inventory are much bigger than the small collection. Medium size tumbaga is usually 3 to 6-8 inches tall or long and weight under 200 -900 hundred grams They were also buried with the owners. These prices can range from $2’50 and up a gram.
Large Tumbaga
Our large tumbaga is simply our biggest and heaviest inventory with some also being quite old. Large tumbaga is any that weight more than 1000 grams and up to 10,000 grams. They were mainly held by the royalty of the tribes and buried with the heads of the tribes. Price can range from $.90 to 1.25 gram. Shipping will varied for each tumbaga, depending on their size and how you want them shipped.
Cultural Categories
Tairona
Tairona
Tairona
Tairona was a Pre-Columbian culture of Colombia, which consisted in a group of chiefdoms in the region of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in present-day Cesar. You will find many Tairona artifacts here.
Calima
Tairona
Tairona
Calima culture (200 BCE–400 CE) is a series of pre-Columbian cultures from the Valle del Cauca in Colombia. You will find Calima gold in this category.
Sinu
Tairona
Narino
The Zenú (or Sinú) is a pre-Columbian culture in Colombia, whose ancestral territory comprises the valleys of the Sinú and San Jorge rivers as well as the coast of the Caribbean around the Gulf of Morrosquillo.
Narino
Quimbaya
Narino
Nariño refers to the culture of people who once lived in communities in the mountains of Nariño, Colombia from 800 to 1500 AD. They also harvested Quinoa and raised Llamas for agriculture and trade.
Quimbaya
Quimbaya
Quimbaya
The Quimbaya civilization was a Pre-Columbian culture of Colombia, noted for their gold work characterized by technical accuracy and detailed designs.
Muisca
Quimbaya
Quimbaya
The Muisca (or Chibcha) civilization flourished in ancient Colombia between 600 and 1600 CE. Their territory encompassed what is now Bogotá and its environs and they have gained lasting fame as the origin of the El Dorado legend.
Definition of Tumbaga
Tumbaga was used in pre-Columbian times from Mesoamerica as a generic term for any combination of gold and copper.
Tumbaga was widely used by the pre-Columban cultures of mesoamérica to make religious, status and decorative objects as well as antique. Like most gold alloys, tumbaga was versatile and could be cast, drawn, hammered, gilded, soldered, welded, plated, hardened, annealed, polished, engraved, embossed, and inlaid. It could range from 95% copper to 95% gold, although tumbaga or guanin* gold was usually made by adding 10 to 30% copper to gold. Tumbaga usually contains 5 to 10% silver as well, which occurred naturally in the gold and wasn’t intentionally added. The amount of gold used in tumbaga depended on the metal’s availability. Objects from gold-rich areas like Calima and Tolima in Colombia, for instance, contained purer gold while most surviving pieces from the Muisca, Narino, Sinu and Tairona regions were smaller, less pure and depended on gilding for appearance.
There were several reasons tumbaga was popular. A primary one is that 70% gold/30%copper will melt at around 800 C., much lower than gold or copper separately. That’s important because melts were done in large clay pots using a team of men huffing on blowpipes. Molten metal then flowed from a hole in the bottom of the vessel into open molds made from stone or clay. The lost wax casting techniques of these peoples were extremely sophisticated. The lost-wax casting tradition was developed by the peoples of Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia. They routinely cast hollow objects and bi-metal half silver-half gold objects using complex one-time molds made of clay. They moistened and shaped into the desired form. It was dried in the sun for a few days to drive out moisture. Then beeswax was mixed with copal resin (for hardening) and rolled into a thin sheet that was shaped around the clay model “core”. Decorations were then incised into the wax. Depletion gilding was routinely used to decorate the surfaces of objects made from low-gold alloys.
Guanín is an alloy of gold, copper and silver, similar to red gold, used in Metallurgy in pre-columbian Mesoamerica. This is where we -- as art dealers -- come in to bring you the best of these products.