Featured Bakelite ? Locket Bracelet

To be used after tasting, for desinfection, never before.
To cleanse the palate in between tasting different materials, some neutral tasting white bread or toast will do. That is what is used for wine tasting, so I'm sure it is good for jewellery tasting as well.

 

Lacking 100% confidence, I'm going against the crowd.

I think it's one material, vulcanite/ebonite.

 

And I do the 'tooth test' on all kinds of materials, not just pearls., In this case, I bet the cuff part feels far different from the decorative part. About the locket compartment, I'm not sure; don't know what it is & have never done the test on anything that is in the rubber-like family of substances, such as gutta percha & Vulcanite.

https://artofmourning.com/2011/02/08/vulcanite/?doing_wp_cron=1560694780.3617188930511474609375

When buying jet or vulcanite, be vary wary and scrutinise your piece closely. One of the easiest ways is to spot the carving behind the memento (photo or hair) in a locket, as this wasn’t smooth and moulded like vulcanite, jet will often show the marks of the carver’s tools.

 

Then there would have been no need to attach the decoration to the lid with unsightly hardware; they could have been made as a single piece.

 

ibid.: ...note if the piece is obviously moulded (such as the smooth, curved expanding band on this piece) or if there are the obvious carving marks.

 

Unless you make components that can be used in a variety of designs.

Additionally, making one mold that deep would be complicated and limiting (no undercuts)... and, I suspect, would be a less successful imitation of jet.

 

Fair point, Or if you sold the same basic bracelet with different designs on top.

I don't see any undercuts, evidence on the side of molded. I can't see the decoration well enough, really. @KSW Does the decoration really look like this or is there a lot of glare, or what?



Vulcanite has a way of going brown over time. Seems often to start in the crevices.

Perfectly possible the bracelet is entirely artificial, but using 2 or 3 different substances. Properties needed for the expanding band are different than requirements for other.

 

I was suggesting that if the two pieces (grapes and top of locket) were one, the mold would involve deep undercuts.

Just another reason for not having created a mold that would cast these two pieces as one -- it would not be an effective jet replacement.

 

I think you are seeing undercutting when I am not. You have the much better eye, & eyes, I can easily be misreading the photo. Presence or absence of undercuttiing is definitely something to look for when trying to determine carved or cast, although with some things, like newer lava cameos, I suspect molded, then touched up by hand here & there.

 

I think the problem is that I'm not explaining myself well enough.

I'm talking about places where the two pieces meet as below:

 

Yes and no.

For those who believe it's carved, yes. For those who believe it's molded, no.

 

This was one of my 4 hour nights too, so could be quite addled without realizing. When it comes to that particular piece you circled...

I was about to say something which, after further consideration, probably wasn't correct.

 

It 'could be' in the sense of not impossible, but it would be unusual.

 

I’ll be home soon and take lots more photos!

 

Oh good, then we can really get the debate going.

 

No question it is in several parts (decor and locket are assembled with rivets, visible on 6th OP pic) which your enlarged pic makes obvious there.
Victorian black materials (except bog oak jet and French jet) could be pressed rather than molded.

 

Happy Sunday, kyra. Can you explain how you are using 'French jet'? It seems to be applied, rightly or wrongly, to many materials. Which one do you mean?

Think there's no disagreement that it is assembled from 4 different pieces. We're just wrangling over what those pieces are made of.

 

I thought it was already going. Maybe the wrong way, but going it was.

 

Yes, @Bronwen and I agree that there are separate parts in this piece, but we're having quite the discussion about why/why not (if they're all the same material) you would make the top piece in separate parts.

At least I think that's what we're talking about. I'm not sure that @Bronwen agrees.

Which may be why we've talked about it soooo much.