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Juana Barraza photo

Juana Barraza

Scoundrels
Mexico
Date of Birth: Dec 27, 1957

Juana Dayanara Barraza Samperio is a Mexican serial killer known as "La Mataviejitas" (The Little Old Lady Killer). She was sentenced to 759 years in prison for the killing of 16 elderly women. Sentences imposed in Mexican courts are generally served concurrently, but the maximum sentence under...

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Nordahl photo photo

Blane David Nordahl

Scoundrels
United States
Date of Birth: 1962

Burglar to the Stars

Blane Nordahl is a unique American cat burglar - a person who is adept at entering and leaving the burglarized place without attracting notice. He became a specialized cat burglar, a Silver Cat Burglar. His burglaries focussed on items that were valuable including a stein...

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Thomas Edison photo

Thomas Edison

Photographers
United States
Date of Birth: 1847 — 1937

"I am experimenting upon an instrument which does for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear, which is the recording and reproduction of things in motion ." --Thomas A. Edison, 1888

Edison, an incredible creator, patented 1,093 inventions. These included the phonograph, the kinetograph...

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Peter Mawdsley no photo available

Peter Mawdsley

Photographers
United Kingdom
Date of Birth: 1824 — 1909

Peter Mawdsley invented the first photographic paper, the silver gelatin print, in 1873. It was the first photographic process that submerged exposed paper into chemicals, rather than using light, as the chief agent in developing an image. Due to its stability and ease of use, developing-out...

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Charles Harper Bennett photo

Charles Harper Bennett

Photographers
United Kingdom
Date of Birth: 1840 — 1927

Charles Bennett was an English photographic pioneer. He improved the gelatine silver process developed by Richard Leach Maddox. In 1873 he created a method of hardening the emulsion, making it more resistant to friction, and larger. In 1878 he discovered that by prolonged heating the sensitivity...

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Louis Aim Auguston Le Prince photo

Louis Aim Auguston Le Prince

Photographers
France
Date of Birth: 1841 — 1890

Born in Metz, France, Louis Aim studied chemistry and physics at university and then worked as a photographer and painter. By the 1880s, he was one of many inventors trying to master the technology for what would become film. Le Prince's first camera had 16 lenses, which took "sequential...

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Wilhelm Rontgen photo

Wilhelm Rontgen

Photographers
Germany
Date of Birth: 1845 — 1923

Wihelm Rontgen was a German physicist who was the first person to systematically produce and detect electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range today known as X-rays or Röntgen rays. His discovery of X-rays was a great revolution in the fields of physics and medicine and electrified the...

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George Eastman photo

George Eastman

Photographers
United States
Date of Birth: 1854 — 1932

George Eastman was an American entrepreneur who founded the Eastman Kodak Company. His invention of the Kodak camera, a name he coined, was a major reason for making photography accessible to the public.

In 1878, when he was 24, he bought a photographic outfit with all the paraphernalia of the...

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Antoine Claudet photo

Antoine Claudet

Photographers
France
Date of Birth: 1797 — 1867

Antoine Claudet was a French businessman who moved to London to open a glass warehouse. The daguerreotype process quickly attracted his interest and he returned to Paris to be taught its fundamentals by the creator himself, Louis-Jacques Daguerre.

Returning to England with an operating license,...

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Robert Jefferson Bingham photo

Robert Jefferson Bingham

Photographers
United Kingdom
Date of Birth: 1824 — 1870

Robert Bingham was an English pioneer photographer, mainly active in France, making portraits and reproductions of paintings. He had a background in chemistry and was particularly interested in photographic processes and published a treatise on this subject in 1848. He later became the first...

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Richard Leach Maddox photo

Richard Leach Maddox

Photographers
United Kingdom
Date of Birth: 1816 — 1902

Richard Maddox was an English photographer and physician who invented lightweight gelatin negative plates for photography in 1871. Dry plate is a glass plate coated with a gelatin emulsion of silver bromide. It can be stored until exposure, and after exposure it can be brought back to a darkroom...

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Henry Fox Talbot photo

Henry Fox Talbot

Photographers
United Kingdom
Date of Birth: 1800 — 1877

Henry Talbot was an English polymath - a person whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects. His interest in photography led him to invent the salted paper and calotype process, also called talbotye, in the 1830s. In this technique, a sheet of paper coated with silver chloride was...

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Richard Beard photo

Richard Beard

Photographers
United Kingdom
Date of Birth: 1801 — 1885

Richard Beard was an entrepreneur who profitably established himself in the coal trade in London. With his entrepreneurial spirit, in 1841, he paid Louis Daguerre 150 pounds for a license to use his technology. He set up photography as a business speculation and opened the world's first...

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Thomas Sutton photo

Thomas Sutton

Photographers
United Kingdom
Date of Birth: 1819 — 1875

Thomas Sutton, who was born in Kensington, London, studied architecture before earring a Bachelor of Arts degree from Caius College in Cambridge. Photography first entered his life in 1841 when he posed for a daguerreotype portrait in Antoine Claudet's studio. In 1855 he set up a photographic...

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Louis Désiré  Blanquart-Evrard photo

Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard

Photographers
France
Date of Birth: 1802 — 1872

Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard was a cloth merchant from Lille, France who learned the calotype process from his druggist, a student of the inventor of the calotype, William Henry Fox Talbot. He developed a method of bathing the paper in solutions of potassium iodide and silver nitrate rather...

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John Johnson photo

John Johnson

Photographers
United States
Date of Birth: 1813 — 1871

John Johnson was born at Saco, Maine, U.S.A. in 1813. He was brought up in New Hampshire and, for a time, worked as an assistant to a jeweller and watchmaker in New York. He formed a business partnership with Alexander Simon Wolcott (1804 -1844), a New York instrument maker.

1839 was the year...

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Alexander Wolcott photo

Alexander Wolcott

Photographers
United States
Date of Birth: 1804 — 1844

Alexander Wolcott was an American experimental photographer, inventor, and maker of medical supplies and optical instruments. In 1839, he met John Johnson, a jeweller and watchmaker's assistant. 1939 was also the year that Louis Daguerre of France, in efforts to finance his developments, went...

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Frederick Scott Archer photo

Frederick Scott Archer

Photographers
United Kingdom
Date of Birth: 1813 — 1857

Frederick Archer was an Englishman who apprenticed as a bullion dealer and silversmith. He moved on to work as a sculptor creating busts of well known people. In 1847 he began using photography as an aid for this work. He was unsatisfied with the calotype process and the paper negative. In 1849...

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Edward Land photo

Edward Herbert Land

Photographers
United States
Date of Birth: 1909 — 1991

November 26, 1848, marks a major day in the history of photography as American Edward Land introduced his Model 95 camera, which produced sepia-coloured prints in about one minute. It was the achievement of his efforts between 1943 and 1947 to create self-developing photography.

Land called his...

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Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre photo

Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre

Photographers
France
Date of Birth: 1787 — 1851

Louis Daguerre, was a French painter and physicist who invented the first practical process of photography, known as the daguerreotype. The first permanent photograph from nature was made in 1826/27 by Nicéphore Niépce but it was of poor quality and required eight hours exposure time. Niépce...

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Joseph Nicéphore Niépce photo

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce

Photographers
France
Date of Birth: 1765 — 1833

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, is credited as the inventor of photography. He was a French inventor, who first gained fame, with his older brother Claude Niépce, for their invention of the internal combustion engine. When lithography began advancing he experimented with this new printing technique....

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Thomas Wedgwood photo

Thomas Wedgwood

Photographers
United Kingdom
Date of Birth: 1771 — 1805

Thomas Wedgwood, a son of Josiah Wedgwood of pottery fame, was an English inventor. He is the first person known to have created impermanent pictures by capturing camera images on material coated with a light-sensitive chemical. His practical experiments yielded only shadow image photograms that...

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Johann Heinrich Schulze painting photo

Johann Heinrich Schulze

Photographers
Germany
Date of Birth: 1687 — 1744

Johann Schulze was a German physician and anatomy professor who made a significant discovery in the development of photography when he observed that silver salts darkened when exposed to sunlight. In 1725, while attempting to create a phosphorescent material by combining a slurry of chalk with...

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Johann Zahn photo

Johann Zahn

Photographers
Germany
Date of Birth: 1641 — 1707

Johann Zahn, was inducted into the Silver Hall of Fame, not for his use of silver, but for his studies related to light and his interests in the production of the camera obscura, (latin for dark chamber.) Zahn, a German priest, was the author of Oculus Artificialis Teledioptricus Sive...

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Frue, William Bell photo

William Bell Frue

Miner
United States
Date of Birth: 1830 — 1881


William Bell Frue, emigrated, at a young age, from Ireland to the United States. His mining career began in 1853 when he worked for the Pewabic copper mine in Michigan. With the discovery of the rich silver deposit on Silver Islet in the Canadian waters of Lake Superior, he was hired by the...

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Sir John Frederick William Herschel photo photo

Sir John Frederick William Herschel

Photographers
United Kingdom
Date of Birth: 1792 — 1871

Sir John Herschel was a scientist and astronomer, like his father, Sir William Herschel, who discovered Uranus. He floundered in his early schooling before focusing on math and at the youthful age of 21 he was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of London. He worked on a variety of projects...

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Atsidi Sani no photo available

Atsidi Sani

Silversmiths
United States
Date of Birth: 1830 — 1918

Sani played an important role in the history of Navajo silversmithing. He is known by many to be the first Navajo silversmith, although his main focus was in blacksmithing; working with iron. Many agree that he learned silversmithing in the year 1853. According to Navajo tribal leader, Chee...

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Tommy Singer no photo available

Tommy Singer

Silversmiths
United States
Date of Birth: 1940 — 2014

Tommy Singer (born 1940; death May 31, 2014) was a Navajo silversmith who specialized in chip-inlay jewelry. He died in a motorcycle accident on May 31, 2014. His inlaid turquoise, coral, and silver pieces incorporated traditional Navajo designs. Singer gained acclaim as the originator of the chip...

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Paul de Lamerie no photo available

Paul de Lamerie

Silversmiths
United Kingdom
Date of Birth: 1688 — 1751

Paul de Lamerie (9 April 1688 – 1 August 1751) was a London-based silversmith. The Victoria and Albert Museum describes him as the "greatest silversmith working in England in the 18th century". Though his mark raises the market value of silver, his output was large and not all his pieces are...

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David Austin Sayre no photo available

David Austin Sayre

Silversmiths
United States
Date of Birth: 1793 — 1870

David Austin Sayre (March 12, 1793 - September, 1870) was a prominent silversmith, banker and educator. Sayre is best remembered as founder of Sayre Female Institute.

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George Guess, aka Sequoyah no photo available

George Guess, aka Sequoyah

Silversmiths
United States
Date of Birth: 1767 — 1843

Sequoyah (Ssiquoya, as he signed his name, or Se-quo-ya, as is often spelled in Cherokee; named in English George Gist or George Guess) (c.1770-1843), was an American and Cherokee polymath. In 1821 he completed his independent creation of a Cherokee syllabary, making reading and writing in...

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Mario Buccellati no photo available

Mario Buccellati

Silversmiths
Italy
Date of Birth: 1891 — 1965

Founded in 1919 when Mario Buccellati took over Milan's Beltrami & Beltrami, Buccellati is known for its richly textured pieces that are influenced by Renaissance motifs and nature. He was the first famous for the technique of texture-engraving where pieces look like silk, damask, tulle, lace,...

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Jean Baptiste Claude Odiot no photo available

Jean Baptiste Claude Odiot
House of Odiot

Silversmiths
France
Date of Birth: 1763 — 1850

The House of Odiot was founded in 1690 by Jean-Baptiste Gaspard Odiot but rose to prominence under Jean-Baptiste Claude, Gaspard's grandson. Jean-Baptiste Claude was influenced by classical Greek and Egyptian motifs as expressed in the Directoire and Empire styles.

Odiot purchased many of Henry...

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Jean Puiforcat no photo available

Jean Puiforcat

Silversmiths
France
Date of Birth: 1897 — 1945

Founded in Paris in 1820 by Louis-Victor and Emile Puiforcat and their cousin, Puiforcat rose to fame as one of the great French silversmiths. The Puiforcat collection features outstanding designs ranging from classical through Art Deco to modern design. Many of the works were recreated from...

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Paul Storr no photo available

Paul Storr
HUNT & ROSKELL

Silversmiths
United Kingdom

A manufacturing firm, retail jewellers and silversmiths founded by Paul Storr in 1819 as Storr & Co. John Samuel Hunt, who had assisted Storr from the start, continued as a partner until his death in 1865 when he was succeeded by his son, John Hunt. Robert Roskell joined in 1844 and remained in...

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Jonathan Mappin no photo available

Jonathan Mappin
Mappin & Webb

Silversmiths
United Kingdom
Date of Birth: 1775

In 1775, teenager Jonathan Mappin started a small cutlery workshop in Sheffield. Within a year the first Mappin hallmark was recorded at the assay office. But it was under his four great-grandsons who incorporated the business as Mappin Brothers Ltd in the middle of the 19th century. In 1963...

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Robert Hennel, & Sons no photo available

Robert Hennel, & Sons

Silversmiths
United Kingdom
Date of Birth: 1800

Hennell of Bond Street is one of London's oldest silversmiths and jewellers. It was founded by David Hennell and originally made fashionable silverware for the nobility and landed gentry. David's son, Robert I, is known for his fine neoclassical silver, often with bright-cut engraving. His son,...

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George Wickes no photo available

George Wickes
Garrard & Co.

Silversmiths
United Kingdom
Date of Birth: 1735

Originally founded in 1735 by royal silversmith George Wickes, the firm was eventually taken over by Robert Garrard in partnership with John Wakelin in 1792. Garrard had many aristocratic patrons and was represented at numerous international exhibitions including the Great Exhibition of 1851....

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George & Henry Richards no photo available

George & Henry Richards
Elkington Kingston & Co.

Silversmiths
United Kingdom
Date of Birth: 1830

Brothers George Richards and Henry started G. R. Elkington & Co in the 1830s. The firm then operated independently as Elkington & Co. for over 100 years. In 1840 Elkington & Co. patented the electrolytic process for silver plating that is still in use today and they expanded at an incredible...

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William Chawner no photo available

William Chawner

Silversmiths
United Kingdom
Date of Birth: 1797 — 1834

Flatware-making is one of the sub-specialties of silversmithing. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the vast majority of spoons and forks were made by specialist 'spoon makers' (knives were made by an entirely different tradesman called a cutler). The Chawner family was one of England's dominant...

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Hester Bateman no photo available

Hester Bateman

Silversmiths
United Kingdom
Date of Birth: 1708 — 1794

The most famous woman silversmith, Bateman was the widow of John Bateman. After his death in 1760, she took over his London-based metalwork business and transformed it into one of the most successful and prolific silversmithing workshops in London. Hester and her sons were known for their...

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George Adams no photo available

George Adams

Silversmiths
United Kingdom
Date of Birth: 1840 — 1883

William Chawner II's son-in-law who took over Chawner & Co. with his mother-in-law Mary Chawner. He took over the firm and registered his first mark in 1840. He was an exhibitor at the 1851 Great Exhibition and the company became one of the largest producers of quality silver flatware in...

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Charles Tiffany no photo available

Charles Tiffany
Tiffany & Co.

Silversmiths
United States
Date of Birth: 1837

America's most famous silversmith from the mid 19th to early 20th century. The company began in 1837 when Charles Lewis Tiffany and John Young opened Tiffany & Young. In 1851, Tiffany became the first American firm to introduce the .925 English Sterling Standard in American-made silver. The name...

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Carl Poul Peterson no photo available

Carl Poul Peterson

Silversmiths
Canada
Date of Birth: 1895 — 1977

According to his family history, Carl Poul Petersen apprenticed at Georg Jensen in Denmark before emigrating to Canada in 1929. He worked at Henry Birks and Sons in Montreal but he also set up a studio for commission work in the late thirties. Petersen left Birks and opened his permanent studio...

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Jabez Gorham no photo available

Jabez Gorham
Gorham Manufacturing Company

Silversmiths
United States
Date of Birth: 1831

Established in 1831 in Rhode Island, as a coin-silver flatware and jewelery manufacturer, Gorham eventually became one of the largest silversmiths in the world. By the late 1860s, they grossed $1 million in sales per year. Gorham was tremendously successful with flatware patterns like Chantilly,...

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Henry Birk, & Sons no photo available

Henry Birk, & Sons

Silversmiths
Canada
Date of Birth: 1879

Birks was by far the largest and most influential Canadian silversmith in the 20th century. Henry Birks & Company was established in Montreal in 1879 as a retail jeweler. It became Henry Birks & Sons in 1893 when his three sons joined the business. In 1897 Birks bought out Hendery & Leslie,...

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Charles Christofle no photo available

Charles Christofle

Silversmiths
France
Date of Birth: 1805 — 1863

Charles Christofle founded the company that bears his name in 1830. Originally a jeweler, he bought the patents silver plating and electrolytic gilding of gold in 1842. As a goldsmith, he transformed ceremonial items and everyday objects: from jewelry to cutlery, gold smithery to sculptures, and...

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Jean Puiforcat no photo available

Jean Puiforcat

Silversmiths
France
Date of Birth: 1897 — 1945

Jean Puiforcat served in WW1. After the war, he apprenticed as a silversmith and a designer. He lived in Paris. He designed in the art deco style. His silver work had smooth surfaces and was based on the geometric series. Ivory, onyx, lapis lazuli and rosewood were used to decorate pieces. He...

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Georg Jensen no photo available

Georg Jensen

Silversmiths
Denmark
Date of Birth: 1866 — 1935

Born in 1866, Jensen was the son of a knife grinder in the town of Raadvad just to the north of Copenhagen. Jensen began his training in goldsmithing at the age of 14 in Copenhagen. His apprenticeship with the firm Guldsmed Andersen, ended in 1884, and this freed Georg to follow his artistic...

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Paul Storr no photo available

Paul Storr

Silversmiths
United Kingdom
Date of Birth: 1770 — 1844

Paul Storr was England's most celebrated silversmith during the first half of the nineteenth century. His pieces historically, and currently, adorn royal palaces and the finest stately homes throughout Europe and the world. Storr's reputation rests on his mastery of the grandiose neo-Classical...

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Nathaniel Mills no photo available

Nathaniel Mills

Silversmiths
United Kingdom
Date of Birth: 1784 — 1843

Nathaniel Mills & Sons were 19th century Birmingham silversmiths who excelled in making silver boxes, snuff boxes and visiting card cases. Nathaniel Mills, the Elder, was a partner in Mills & Langston, Northwood Jewelers when he registered his first mark in 1803. In 1825, he registered his...

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Judas Iscariot no photo available

Judas Iscariot

Scoundrels
Date of Birth: - — 33

The thirty pieces of silver that Judas received for betraying Jesus have become a symbol of greed and betrayal. According to the Gospel of Matthew, Judas agreed to betray Jesus for this sum of money, which was equivalent to the price of an enslaved person at that time. Some scholars believe this...

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William Morris Stewart photo

William Morris Stewart

Scoundrels
United States
Date of Birth: 1827 — 1909

William Morris Stewart (August 9, 1827 – April 23, 1909) was an American lawyer and politician. In 1964, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

Personal

Stewart was born in Wayne County, New York, on August 9, 1825. As a child he...

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Peder Olofsson no photo available

Peder Olofsson

Scoundrels
Sweden
Date of Birth: 17th C

The Nasa (Nasafjäll) silver mine (Swedish: Nasa silvergruva), located on Nasa Mountain on the border between Sweden and Norway, was used for mining silver, mainly from 1635 to 1659 and from 1770 to 1810. Smelting occurred during the first period (1635-1659) at Skellefteälven; during the second...

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Hunt Brothers -  Nelson, Lamar & William Hunt photo

Hunt Brothers - Nelson, Lamar & William Hunt

Scoundrels
United States
Date of Birth: 1926 — 2014

Silver Thursday was an event that occurred in the United States silver commodity markets on Thursday, March 27, 1980, following the attempt by brothers Nelson Bunker Hunt, William Herbert Hunt and Lamar Hunt to corner the silver market. A subsequent steep fall in silver prices led to panic on...

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Henry Comstock photo

Henry Comstock

Scoundrels
Canada
Date of Birth: 1820 — 1870

Henry Tompkins (or Thomas) Paige Comstock (1820–1870) was an Canadian miner after whom the Comstock Lode in Virginia City, Nevada was named. The Comstock Lode was the richest silver mine in American history.

Referred to by history books variously as a "sanctimonious gaffer", an "illiterate...

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Noah A. Timmins photo

Noah A. Timmins

Miner
Canada
Date of Birth: 1867 — 1936

Noah Anthony Timmins (March 31, 1867 – January 22, 1936) was a Canadian mining financier and developer who is now counted among the founding fathers of Canada's mining industry.

Noah Timmins partnered with his older brother Henry in 1903 to buy into the La Rose silver claim in Cobalt, Ontario...

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Horace Tabor photo

Horace Tabor

Miner
United States
Date of Birth: 1830 — 1899

Horace Tabor's life story is a testament to hard work but also a great anecdote about short-sightedness. From a simple stone-cutter, he would grow to become one of the country's wealthiest men, only to lose his riches after spending lavishly and investing poorly.

Born in Vermont in 1830, Horace...

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Augusta Tabor photo

Augusta Tabor

Miner
United States
Date of Birth: 1833 — 1895

As the first woman in the California Gulch district, Augusta Louise Tabor, fondly remembered as "The First Lady of Leadville," spent much of her life in helping make Leadville a great mining camp.

She was born in Maine and, in 1857, married the now famous mining magnate, Horace Tabor, who was...

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Antonio Siraumea no photo available

Antonio Siraumea

Miner
Mexico
Date of Birth: 1710 — 1760

Antonio Siraumea, a Yaqui, was likely a resident of the rancheria Arizonac, a real, or small mining camp at the edge of the northern frontier of the Spanish colonies of New Spain.

In October 1736, Siraumea found what appeared to be a number of massive pieces of native silver that were eventually...

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Giovanni Battista Serpieri photo

Giovanni Battista Serpieri

Miner
Italy
Date of Birth: 1832 — 1897

Giovanni Battista Serpieri was the first foreign "mega-entrepreneur" to invest in Greece. He was demonized almost immediately after he had invested fifteen million drachmas to gain the concession to re-open the Lavrion Mines, the same mines that had made ancient Athens an economic powerhouse....

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Paul Sarnoff photo

Paul Sarnoff

Miner
United States
Date of Birth: 1918 — 1999

Paul Sarnoff was, in addition to being a career commodities trader, a prolific writer. His 30-some titles include "Silver Bulls: The Great Silver Boom and Bust," covering the seven months leading up to the rise and fall of silver during 1979 and 1980. It is a constructive and contrarian...

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Paul Revere photo

Paul Revere

Silversmiths
United States
Date of Birth: 1735 — 1818

Paul Revere (December 21, 1734 – May 10, 1818]) was an American silversmith, engraver, early industrialist, and Patriot in the American Revolution. He is best known for his midnight ride to alert the colonial militia in April, 1775 to the approach of British forces before the battles of...

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Robert A. Quartermain photo

Robert A. Quartermain

Miner
Canada
Date of Birth: 1955 — -

Inducted into the Silver Hall of Fame in 2017

Robert A. Quartermain has extensive global experience in geology, exploration and development. Over his 40-year career in the resource industry, he has established a solid track record in building shareholder value in the field of precious metals...

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Dan O'Connor photo

Dan O'Connor

Miner
Canada
Date of Birth: 1864 — 1933

Daniel O'Connor (31 January 1864 – 30 March 1933) was a Canadian politician, businessman and prospector from Pembroke, Ontario. In the late 1880s, O'Connor moved to Sudbury where he became associated with economy, life and industry, becoming the town's second mayor in 1894. Inn and Ronnoco...

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Willett G. Miller photo

Willett G. Miller

Miner
Canada
Date of Birth: 1866 — 1925

Dr. Willet G. Miller, a world-renowned geologist, had an enormous influence on the scientific advancement and mineral development of Canada, and particularly Ontario, in the early decades of the 20th century. His memory has been perpetuated by such practical tokens as a bronze plaque on a cairn...

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James J. McKinley no photo available

James J. McKinley

Miner
Canada

James H. McKinley and Ernest J. Darragh were contractors providing lumber for a railway being pushed north through the thick Ontario bush. On August 7, 1903 the two partners were walking the right of way scouting for trees suitable for railway ties. As they passed through a rock cut on the banks...

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Elizabeth McCourt no photo available

Elizabeth McCourt

Miner
United States
Date of Birth: 1854 — 1935

Elizabeth 'Baby Doe' McCourt Tabor: Colorado's Silver Queen

Elizabeth McCourt Tabor (1854 March 7, 1935), better known as Baby Doe, was the second wife of pioneer Colorado businessman Horace Tabor. Her rags-to-riches and back to rags again story made her a well-known figure in her own day and...

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Eduardo Luna photo

Eduardo Luna

Miner
Mexico

Inducted into the Silver Hall of Fame in 2017

Mr. Luna is currently (2017) Director, President and CEO of Rochester Resources Ltd., a junior natural resources company. Mr. Luna recently joined the board of DynaResource, Inc., which has appointed him as special advisor to the president of its...

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Jaime Lomelin photo

Jaime Lomelin

Miner
Mexico

Inducted into the Silver Hall of Fame in 2017

Mr Lomelin spent 36 years at Peñoles where he served as Group Vice President of the metals and chemicals division for four years and subsequently held the position as CEO for 21 years. He brings to the board an invaluable wealth of senior...

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Alfred LaRose photo

Alfred LaRose

Miner
Canada
Date of Birth: 1870 — 1940

Alfred LaRose, was a blacksmith working as a contractor on the railway being pushed through northern Ontario near Mile 103. About two weeks after Alfred McKinley and Ernest Darragh had made their discovery, LaRose noticed erythrite (red cobalt/cobalt bloom) along the tracks. LaRose noted "One...

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Alan Kulan photo

Alan Kulan

Miner
Canada
Date of Birth: 1921 — 1977

Credited with the discovery of several sizeable lead-zinc-silver deposits in Yukon, most notably the renowned Faro deposit, Alan Kulan was a compassionate and pioneering prospector with an independent, entrepreneurial spirit. His successes spawned other ventures such as prospecting syndicates...

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John (Jan) II Dobry, John the Good - Duke of Opole photo

John (Jan) II Dobry, John the Good - Duke of Opole

Miner
Poland
Date of Birth: 1460 — 1532

In 1526 Tarnowskie Góry in Silesia (southern Poland) was awarded the status of a free mining town, and in 1528, John II the Good, Duke of Opole, issued an ordinance known as the Ordunek Górny, granting the town a series of mining privileges. At the same time a mining authority was also...

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Kamiya Jutel no photo available

Kamiya Jutel

Miner
Korea
Date of Birth: 16th C

In 1526 Kamiya Jutei, a wealthy merchant from Hakata, founded the Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine in Ōda. In 1533 he introduced a Korean method of silver refining to the mine, which became the Hai-Fuki-Ho method.

Historians compared the Hai-Fuki-Ho method to the Medieval European seigerprozess [de] of...

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Tom Herbert no photo available

Tom Herbert

Miner
Canada

Tom Herbert was a French-Canadian working on the railroad being pushed through northern Ontario in the early 1900s. He discovered a vein in the face of a cliff and prevailed on the geologist William Miller to examine it. Miller, Ontario's first government geologist, was in the area looking into...

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George Hearst photo

George Hearst

Miner
United States
Date of Birth: 1820 — 1891

George Hearst, of Scots-Irish origin, was born near present-day Sullivan, Missouri, to William G. Hearst and Elizabeth Collins. Hearst was raised in a log cabin on his family's farm in rural Franklin County. His father operated three small farms, all of which were mortgaged, with slave labor....

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Hayward, Alvinza photo

Alvinza Hayward

Miner
United States
Date of Birth: 1822 — 1904

Born in Vermont, Hayward moved to Canton, New York early in his life. He studied law in New York, but also pursued lumber and lead mining interests. His experience in Michigan vein mining proved invaluable after his move to California in the Gold Rush of 1850. After buying an interest in the...

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Meyer Guggenheim photo

Meyer Guggenheim

Miner
United States
Date of Birth: 1828 — 1905

Meyer Guggenheim was born in Lengnau, Aargau, Switzerland on February 1, 1828. He was of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry and emigrated to the United States in 1847. He started out in the importing business, but made his and his family's fortune (which was one of the largest fortunes of the 19th...

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Daniel Guggenheim photo

Daniel Guggenheim

Miner
United States
Date of Birth: 1856 — 1930

Born and raised in Philadelphia, Daniel Guggenheim was sent to Switzerland as a young man to study the Swiss lace and embroidery business, and to serve as a buyer for his father's import firm. The discovery of high-grade silver-lead ore in the Guggenheim mines in Leadville, Colorado in 1881...

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Diego Gualpa photo

Diego Gualpa

Miner
Peru
Date of Birth: 16th C

The Spanish conquest of South America led to the discovery of Peruvian mountains rich in gold and silver. In April, 1545, high up in the Andes, an Indian named Diego Gualapa climbed a distinctively shaped conical peak in search of a rumoured Indian shrine. Such shrines frequently contained some...

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Juan Godoy photo

Juan Godoy

Miner
Chile
Date of Birth: 1800 — 1842

Juan Godoy (1801-1842) was a Chilean prospector who made significant contributions to Chile's mining industry. He was born in the small town of Copiapó and grew up in a family of miners. Juan Godoy inherited his father's passion for mining and began working in the industry at a young...

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Englehard, Charles, Jr. photo

Charles Englehard, Jr.

Miner
United States
Date of Birth: 1917 — 1971

Charles W. Engelhard Jr. (February 15, 1917 – March 2, 1971 was an American businessman who controlled an international mining and metals conglomerate, as well as a major owner in Thoroughbred horse racing.

Engelhard made his fortune in the precious metals industry, where he operated a...

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Ed Schieffelin no photo available

Ed Schieffelin

Miner
United States
Date of Birth: 1847 — 1897

Edward Lawrence Schieffelin was an American prospector and Indian fighter best known for discovering the Tombstone silver mine in Arizona. He was born on May 7, 1847, in Aurora, Illinois, and was the son of a prominent family. However, he was interested in something other than following in his...

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Charles Dow photo

Charles Dow

Miner
United States
Date of Birth: 1851 — 1902

The Dow of Dow-Jones is Charles Henry Dow, born Nov. 5, 1851, in Connecticut. He went into journalism, working for New England newspapers. His work impressed Charles Danielson, editor of the Providence (R.I.) Journal, and so in 1879 he assigned Dow to join a group of bankers and reporters who...

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Henry Lawrence Vincent Day photo

Henry Lawrence Vincent Day

Miner
United States
Date of Birth: 1902 — 1985

Hank Day (1902-1985) was born in in Spokane, Washington, to Helen Dwyer and Harry Lawrence Day, and grew up in Burke, Idaho, site of the great Hercules mine. In 1905, the family moved to Wallace, Idaho where he remained with the exceptions of when he attended the University of California where,...

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Marcus Daly photo

Marcus Daly

Miner
United States
Date of Birth: 1841 — 1900

Marcus Daly (December 5, 1841 – November 12, 1900) was an Irish-born American businessman known as one of the three "Copper Kings" of Butte, Montana, United States. Prior to his copper career, Daly gained experience in the silver mines of the Comstock mines under the direction of John William...

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Bonanza Kings - Mackay, Fair, Flood, O'Brien photo

Bonanza Kings - Mackay, Fair, Flood, O'Brien

Miner
United States

John Mackay, James Fair, James Flood, William O'Brien

In 1871, Irish-Americans John William Mackay, James Graham Fair, James Clair Flood and William S. O'Brien, organized the Consolidated Virginia Silver Mine near Virginia City, Nevada, from a number of smaller claims on the Comstock Lode and...

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Ross Beaty Photo photo

Ross J. Beaty, C.M.

Miner
Canada
Date of Birth: 1951 — -

Throughout his 48-year career, Ross Beaty has been a leader in the international mining and renewable energy industries, making a significant and lasting impact in BC and around the world.

After graduating from the University of British Columbia in 1979 in geology and law, Ross began a...

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bartolome de medina photo

Bartolomé de Medina

Miner
Spain
Date of Birth: 1497 — 1585

Bartolome de Medina was a successful Spanish merchant who became fascinated with the problem of decreasing silver yields from ores mined in Spanish America. By the mid-sixteenth century, it was well known in Spain that American silver production was in decline due to the depletion of high-grade...

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