“Ball and Cone” Earrings, as the name suggests, refers to a type of earring in which a metal hoop is ornamented with a metal ball from which a cone protrudes. Men from the groups of the Eastern Plains typically wore them.

This pair is unique and appears to have had two lives. The original earring - the ball and cone - is an older form. Somewhere in time, however, perhaps in the late 19th century, a metal chain was added to each earring. And with it, there was affixed a steel cut out of a gunstock club.

The inclusion of the latter feature is important. Gunstock clubs are power symbols which go back centuries prior, all the way to the warrior-complexes of the Woodlands and Great Lakes cultures. The wearer of these earrings undoubtedly chose these cutouts in order to convey his military prowess.

So important were these that they caught the attention of Burton Thayer (1899-1979) of Minnesota, an early and important collector of exceptional objects from the Great Lakes and Plains. Burton’s contribution to the field is today recognized in the many articles he published in Minnesota Archaeologist and correspondences he had with contemporary scholars like former Denver Art Museum curator Norm Feder.

5.5” long (each)

Ex Burton Thayer, MN (1899-1979); ex Gary Spratt, CA.

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