Age/origin of these two bracelets?

These bracelets have glass beads strung on a springy wire.

My best guess is they were made somewhere in the 20s-50s, and probably either made in what's now the Czech Republic, or assembled in the U.S. from Czech beads. Does that sound right or am I off-base?

If anyone can pinpoint the age or origin more precisely, I'd really appreciate it!

 

If they are memory wire - I think it hit the craft markets late 70's to mid 80's - but of course the beads used could have been vintage then. cheers

 

I don't know about age. I'm seeing these type of bracelets at craft shows now.

 

Memory wire has been used in bracelets for a long time, Miriam Haskell used it quite a bit in her early jewelry and it was popular in the 1950's with faux pearls. As for these bracelets, the first one looks older than the second one, but I can't really say much with one picture.

 

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

I've been a bead collector since the early 70s, mostly of glass beads, and feel pretty certain that these pieces are mid-century or older.

I have "triplet" or "sandwich" beads like the ones in the bracelets, with two cone-shape beads surrounding a flat bead in the center, strung temporarily the way they come from the manufacturer. If there's an industry name for these triplets, I've never seen it.

The loose beads I have of this type were old when I got them in the 70s, but I've never known how old or what country they came from. They're not included in the books I have on beads, nor have I found many in Google searches.

Here are more photos in case it will help...

 

The bracelets I'm seeing are made of older beads. I bought one made by a friend of my daughter. She buys old necklaces that are broken and reuses the beads. Just sayin'..

 

Yeah, Bev, I know that anything's possible. There's a bit of a back story that I didn't share, though, which may explain my hunch about them.

I started making beaded jewelry in the late 60s and began selling it in the early 70s, both wholesaling the pieces and at shows. My mother, who was a textile designer, worked in a studio near the garment industry in Manhattan, about a block from the "bead district."

During the early to mid-70s, my mom would go over on her lunch hour or after work to the bead shops and pick out interesting things for me. She became friendly with the owner of one of the largest and oldest shops, who then let her go down in his basement storage area and rummage around stuff that had been sitting there a long time.

Most of what she bought from him were beads, but she found some old prefabricated beaded jewelry, too. Often my mother would keep bits and pieces of what she found for herself.

These two bracelets were among my mother's things, and are so similar to the triplet beads I mentioned that I think there's a good chance they came from the same source... the basement of the bead shop. Plus I have a different style of wire wrap bracelet that was among the beads my mom gave me in the 70s that I know she bought from that shop. So I'll never know for sure, but all the evidence seems to point to these bracelets not being more recent.

The moral of the story... become friends with your sources and they may let you rummage in their storage areas!

 

I don't really have anything to offer about the bracelets themselves, but I just wanted to say that you take lovely pictures! Very crisp and in-focus, and I love the clear display you use - it's so unintrusive to the picture, it lets the bracelets really stand out.

 

Aw, thanks, tie.dye... that was very nice of you to say.

A good camera (Canon S95) and Photoshop help a lot!

 

You're welcome.

I just bought one of those portable light boxes, and I love how much it helps with my pictures. Now I have to figure out if I want to go back and redo the pictures on the 250 listings I have...lol.

 

I know what you mean... it can seem daunting, especially if you're not sure an item will sell or bring much $$.

Other than paper items that I scanned, I used to mostly sell very small items (beads, buttons, and dollhouse minis). I got used to doing my photographs a certain way and usually got pretty good shots. I'm now trying to transition to larger 3D items, and struggling to get a setup that works well.

 

Those beads are GORGEOUS...and your pics are so professional

 

Thanks, Shiloh!

I'm still working on my new setup, and getting much closer to what I think I'll be happy with. Kind of a perfectionist here, when it comes to visual things.

 

I vote for the beads being older than the configuration they're in now. I've seen bracelets made the same way from the 50s, but those beads could have been new old stock. They're still finding caches of them in Czechoslovakia from before WWII.

 

I think you may be right, evelyb. The 50s feels more like it to me for the style and, based on other beads I've had, the 20s-30s seems like it might be the age of the beads.

When I list them, I'll probably say "older vintage" or something like that.