Snowflake Gold & Silver Works

Photos courtesy of Bob Moon    -    (click to enlarge)

Throughout most of the 1970’s there was a fellow in town that made quite a name for himself in the art of jewelry making, and as a silversmith and goldsmith.

Bob Moon started his apprenticeship with Joe Calloway (Joe’s Jail, see posting in October 2011) but felt the need to keep growing as an artist. He went on to take jewelry classes in Radford, and afterward set up shop with a leather worker in Myrtle Beach for a while. After two summers there he came back to finish his last year at Virginia Tech and shared space in a downtown business known as The Craftsman.

 In the mid 70’s, Kathy Barfield, an herbalist who had rented a space in The Craftsman as well, and Bob, took a space behind Argabrite’s (now Sharkeys) and named it Silver and Spice. A few years later, Bob broke out on his own and eventually began to really excel in the shop above Mr. Fooz seen in the photo above, and called it Snowflake Gold & Silver Works. He worked with other silversmiths and goldsmiths, giving them consignment space there.

Bob says he remembers as many as ten different silver and goldsmiths working in Blacksburg during the 70s. For me personally it was shops like these that made our little town such a cool place to live back then.

 Bob left the area in the mid 80s and still has a shop, located in a little mall outside of Chicago, IL.