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In this chapter, we use two puzzling cases from West and Northwest Mexico to work through the challenges and opportunities of an anthropological study of Mesoamerican value systems. At Classic and Epiclassic La Quemada, Zacatecas, obsidian was a rare material procured from hundreds of miles away, but its presumed value based on costs of acquisition is not reflected in its distribution or treatment—obsidian was widely consumed and primarily used in the form of expedient flakes. In contrast, Los Guachimontones, Jalisco, was located next to a high-quality obsidian flow, but during the Postclassic, when archaeologists would expect to find large-scale production of prismatic cores and blades for export, an ancillary macroblade industry helped meet local demand. In both cases, we argue that the apparent incongruities of the value of obsidian objects can be resolved by asking what kinds of value they enabled in …