Montana Silversmiths, Big Sky Carvers merge

Manhattan’s Big Sky Carvers, famous for its wooden duck decoys and summertime tent sale, has joined Montana Silversmiths of Columbus to form a new company under the umbrella of The Montana Group, Inc.

Big Sky Carvers’ artists, craftspeople and staff, as well as the shoppers who prize their work, will notice little change, said Marc Pierce, who helped found the company in Bozeman in 1980.

"We’re going to keep our own identity very much intact," Marc Pierce said Thursday. "Our brands are so strong, these two brands — Big Sky Carvers with the outdoor, lodge genre, and Montana Silversmiths in the Western markets — that we’re not going to change anything that might dilute the strength of those brands that took all those years to build."

By KARIN RONNOW, Chronicle Staff Writer

Full Story: http://bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2005/06/24/news/merger.txt