German silver bracelet/armband/bow guard.

Rocker-etched in one pass. "Thunderbird" figure w/one or two other figures enclosed. Evident age, scratches, wear.

Others like it out there?

No clue. Sophisticated design but c.b. a "fake Indian" artifact I suppose. If so, what specifically is it faking?

The last shot is a composite attempt to show complete design.

End-to-end about 174mm & 43mm h. (7" & 1.75").

Any hints?

Thanks for your time and trouble.

 

very impressed with the last side by side photo....
As far as NA goes....I have never seen that design....or workmanship before.

 

The design was "chased",doesn't look NA at all.It could have been made almost any place,maybe a student learning how to chase metal.

 

"Rocker-etching" was (and is) usually done with a graver or some other tool, such as a file. So yes, it's chased. "Wiggle worked" is another term I've seen.

 

https://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q="german+silver"

 

nope......not seeing it there....

 

Welcome, Scranch! When you use the term German silver do you mean silver from Germany or the alloy called "german silver" in the US (which is not silver at all?)

 

Hi - welcome.

Okay, so are you assuming it's 'German silver' (nickel silver, no real silver content) because of the NA pieces at the Smithsonian, or do you just know, or it's been tested?

Will be the first to admit my failing eyesight, but your pics are pretty good, and I don't see any signs of rocker engraving either (etching is an acid process), it has a zig-zag effect, and as Hollyblue suggested (she knows metal-work), this appears to be rather poorly done chasing - and to state it in simplest terms, chasing moves the metal, engraving removes it, they are not the same thing. Would also agree with Komo, it doesn't really look NA to me either - also not having any luck seeing a Thunderbird motif...

~Cheryl

 

Just curious to see how it would look:

 

It is not silver, it is not magnetic, it appears to be the alloy of zinc, copper and nickel that is called "German" or "nickel" silver (and other things) and was commercially available by the 1850s, often sold in sheets, in this case c. 70mm thick, and used thus as a trade item. Very roughly the hardness and tensile strength of mild steel. No rust (it's not tinplate) but some slight surface discoloration because I haven't polished it in decades. I suppose I could mess with trying to come up with a specific gravity, but the weight is 66gr.

Thanks for your interest.

GF

 

Thanks.

"Rocker-etched" is just a term I've seen used for this (along with "wiggle-work") & I figured that term was in wider use. But yes it is definitely & correctly "rocker-engraved".

The execution was apparently often done with whatever was available -- not necessarily a proper graver. Old files ground down to a particular tip, for instance. The fact that it was poorly done doesn't bother me.

The metal used is not soft like copper or silver. It takes a lot of force. The technique apparently involves "rocking" or "wiggling" the tool as you do the line -- by rotating the wrist. One sharp corner or edge of the tip gouges one side, then the other side is gouged as the tool is rotated and advanced -- hence the "herring-bone" pattern. Material may or may not be removed as a result. In this piece there is a faint scribe line running between the herringbones. It may have been scribed first and used as a guide for the graver. Really hard to say if the design was done in one pass or two, I just assume one.

The "thunderbird" (as pointed out to me many, many years ago by a prof. of ethnographic art) is quite "abstract". The wings curl at the tips. There are "force lines" (or "lightning, if one prefers) projecting from the leading edges of the "wings". The head is barely suggested. The tail flares at the bottom.

Within the bird figure is an equally simple figure of possibly a man. And there appears to be something else inside of that. (The prof. thought it might be a "horse" but he wasn't sure and neither am I.). The whole ensemble seems to be set on a single etched "ground line".

I don't know if it's NA. I just found it in Texas. German silver in flat sheets was a common trade item on the Plains in the latter half of the 19th c. Crude tools such as files, shears etc. were available, especially on the reservations as they were established.

But german silver sheets were hardly confined to the plains and are of course still available today.

GF

 

It takes no more force to work copper or sterling than nickel silver. The pieces on the Smithsonian link have questionable history, the "belt" appears to have been made on a tinsmith's rolling mill and appears to be a hat band.Whoever donated the pieces received them with no real history information on who actually made the pieces.

 

I'm not going to get into all that.

I'm just trying to find out if anyone has seen anything like this. Evidently no one has. Time for me to move on.

Thanks to one and all.

GF

 

I don't know if it's NA.

I do.
It's not.