Featured A silver tone ethnic necklace, please help

Hi folks,

I just got this necklace and wonder what it might be. Looks to me like silver (I tested with ice), ethnic North African - Yemenite or so, but it can well be some modern hipster thing. I will appreciate any ideas or help on the origin and the age.

 

I have to think this is a more recent item, just because it's so poorly assembled .

@Any Jewelry ...... your thoughts please !

 

komokwa, I was thinking the same. I buy cheap stuff that I like or somehow has intrigued me, and this one is no exception. I just wonder what style it imitates, I like it and will wear anyway.

 

It was made in India. I agree, not the best quality, but attractive.
It is probably (thickly) plated, the ice cube test is not 100% reliable. You can buy testing acid, which is more reliable, although thick plating can be difficult. I bought my last bottle from a Bulgarian seller.

These were also exported to the Middle East to be sold as authentic Middle Eastern souvenirs. That's the way it often is with souvenirs.

 

Omg!
Never heard about the ice cube test! Now I will have to try it out with my kids!
Are there any other crazy but simple tests around I can do with them?

 

Looks like they were trying a granulation process,the pieces are thickly coated with solder.

 

Thanks, Any, I did not expect to be from so far away, but nowadays everything is made in Asia, apparently even the souvenirs So it indeed imitates North African style, doesn't it?
As for the test, so far I don't think it is needed, I am not going to sell it, I don't sell, I just hoard cheap jewellery and wear it. A hoarder And for me it does not matter if it is indeed silver or not.

It is a real fun -worth trying There are others as well, for instance salt water test for amber. Sure not for serious business though just for fun.

I have always been fond of home-made chemistry - you know, it is easy with the acid. But what if you were in the jungle on a lonely island - you would have to survive with simple home-made tricks. Ok, you wouldn't have ice there but you know what I mean
I am a big fan of science fiction - remember Isaac Asimov's novel where a teacher of chemistry saved the entire spaceship and helped the crew get it back to the Earth. Sure Asimov has a wonderful sense of humour but nevertheless....

So my piece is Indian imitating berber or yemenite style. Thank you all, guys!

 

Unfortunately not reliable, but fun to mess around with ice cubes on a hot day.

 

Not at all, it is traditional Indian. It is rather crude though, it looks like it is cast to simulate traditional Indian repoussé appliqués.
Btw, repoussé appliqués can be found in many cultures, including Indian, North African, and.... Dutch.

Salt water test for amber is considered a reliable test, but it is best to add the UV test as well. And use your eyes, look for things that would be unnatural in amber, like swirling patterns.

Indian, made in a purely Indian style. There are no specific Berber or Yemeni elements at all.

 

Thank you very much, Any, for the detailed explanation! Very much appreciated!
Now I have a hypothesis how it came here, probably through the many Indian shops that popped-up recently with little success and some of them already closed, and the items sold out at discount prices. Just a hypothesis.

Salt water test, I heard (maybe wrong), can work also for lightweight plastic materials, like celluloid. Is it right? I tried it with a pendant I bought long ago from a shop (in the time of People's Republic) and it worked, didn't try with UV though. No swirls, only specks and pieces of material that look like organic. I also have a string of raw amber which also passed the salt water test, and several others that are definitely faux but are just beautiful . Here one can find USSR amber (which means Baltic) but prices have soared recently. I will post pictures later, may be interesting.

Both methods (ice cube and salt water) have their scientific explanation though, so I enjoy applying them. Home chemistry experiments

 

I don't know how long they were made for. Here in Western Europe a lot of these items came through the 1960s Hippie Trail between W Europe and India and Nepal, and a general interest in Indian items in those days.
I also saw them in the 70s in shops around here, but I don't think they were sold here after the late 70s.

The Hippie Trail also passed through Bulgaria, so who knows, maybe a hungry Hippie had to sell some necklaces for food and lodgings.

 

We get so much Indian jewellery here. Legacy of colonialism plus having a substantial heritage community.

 

Do you still get these agate inlaid silvertone pieces?

Our Indian/Pakiststani community is mostly from Surinam, also a colonial legacy. They prefer gold.
They call themselves Hindostan, after the old pre-colonial country, and to differentiate from Hindu Indians.

 

We do indeed get those like mad. I'm very fond of them. And also costume Indian wedding jewellery, which is fab.

 

We also get that here. You need to dress up for a wedding, and the guests sometimes wear those faux pieces. I have a few bits and bobs as well.

 

Any, thanks for this historic briefing, very interesting. I like to investigate the historic background of items very much, more than I like to wear the jewelry.

But I highly doubt that there were Hippies here under the communist regime. It is a long story, I can't explain in several sentences but in the 1960s and 1970s all people here were "happily building the bright communist future" - that was the official paradigm. And on the contrary to the West, it was forbidden to have different views and threatened with huge social consequences if someone disagreed and was fond of the Hippie movement. Here we were not allowed to have long hair (even the girls not to mentions the boys) and to wear blue jeans, and to listen to The Beatles or The Rollingstones. It was all "rotten capitalist propaganda". Up until the Perestroyka. I have read disclosed State Security (the Bulgarian KGB) archives with instructions to the officers how to deal with young people who tend to incline towards "Western models of behaviour". Believe me, not a pleasant thing to read.

Furthermore, the goods sold here in general and the jewelry in particular were from Comеcon, no Indian stuff was available. On top of the total deficit of everything, from ladies' pads to cars.

So if the item belongs to 1960s or 1970s, and not to the 2000-2010, then it becomes even more interesting for me how it came here.

P.S. It is amazing how unable I feel to explain all the reasons why it is very unlikely a Hippie thing sold here in 1960s or 1970s. It will take a whole book to justify my premise

A different hypothesis comes to my mind - at some point around this time USSR (so we too) had very good relations with Indira Ghandi so it might be that goods form India were imported and sold in small quantities "under the counter".

 

I know, we knew a lot of it in the West. Not all, but much more than you would think.
Our freedom also meant freedom of information. Reporters could still travel to Bulgaria and other Eastern European countries, even if on a tourist visa.
We also had many refugees, with stories of persecution and repression. The Bulgarian lady who taught me a few Bulgarian songs was one of them. She fled in the 60s, I think. She taught me ca 1980.
The choreographer of our dance group went on holidays to Bulgaria, long before Perestroyka. The Bulgarian state encouraged tourism, although with restrictions. But our choreographer spoke Bulgarian, which helped him hear more than the regular tourist. He was also invited to attend classes in Bulgarian dance, the official dance troupes. That is how he came to be specialised in Bulgarian dance.
I also met Bulgarian dancers, always with a 'minder'. A message, loud and clear. Many other national dance troupes had similar 'minders'.

Hippies did pass through Bulgaria, and brought back news as well. Just like they passed through other countries you wouldn't think of because of their political regimes or religious restrictions.
In the early days Hippies didn't have long hair, and they didn't always wear jeans. And they didn't travel in a movie style Hippie Caravan. Like many people who travel, they could accomodate and 'blend in' if necessary, and a pair of scissors is always at hand.

 

Thanks, Any, for sharing. Of course, we encouraged tourism, it was one of the very few sources of "hard currency" (a.k.a US dollars) for us so much needed to import technologies and equipment. In spite of the self-reliance doctrine.

I am a contemporary of those events, I remember well how I was forced to cut my gorgeous long braid in high school "because of hygienic reasons". And how a lady was standing at the doors and was surveying my eyebrows if they had been plucked and if my skirt was not shorter than the knees.

It might be, of course, your hypothesis, but then this necklace becomes even more interesting for me.

 

All authoritarian states did it, and many still do.

Yes, unfortunately regimes also restrict kids in their freedom to be kids.

The eyebrow and skirt thing was also in my high school in Australia btw. And the proper thick stockings and ill-fitting winter shoes, in a hot climate. No authoritarian state, we wore school uniforms.

 

Haha, Any, I feel relieved that it was not only me to suffer such breach of my freedom

We also had uniforms, of course.