Comparing costume jewelry bracelets to the metal beads made me wonder....
I was wondering if the metal beads weren't made of wires soldered to a frame to which cast flowers were applied. The reason I thought this is because the bent "wire" center, bottom looks like a bent wire.
Wire work and mill graining were apparently very popular jewelry styles in the first half of the 20th century, but I'm ignorant about the actual methods used to create these costume jewelry pieces. Are they cast costume jewelry versions of more expensive hand-crafted jewelry styles?
Still think these metal beads are very uncommon.
Possibly a clever casting technique using two identical halves with 4 triangular flanges, with each half then offset and snapped together, perhaps with a bit of solder?
Hello!
This is my first post, and I hope it's OK that i'm jumping right in. I'm a jewelry collector and designer who has long been in awe of the knowledge of this community. (Beadiste, I love your blog!)
I have a necklace made out of the base components of your spheres! I guess this is the form they took before being tapped into half-circles? It's verrry tarnished, and I don't have any provenance for it myself, but wanted to share the pic.
Looking forward to see if more of the mystery is revealed over time!
Antoinette
Whoever designed this component was pretty clever, it seems.
Makes me wonder again if these are Rice-Weiner designs, or products of some other Deco-era constume jewelry atelier?
Clever indeed, and a few nights ago I turned the Internet inside out looking for another example. Got nothin'. I will come back and post if a clue turns up--they almost always do!!
I haven't handled any Rice-Weiner/IndoCraft (sadly--what I wouldn't give to thrift a Thief of Baghdad piece!), just looked at a lot of pictures, but it all looks a lot heavier than these are in person. They're super thin and delicate, and are much closer kin to the bracelets you posted. I don't have a testing kit but they tarnish, polish and smell like silver, and 'feel' Czech or Austrian.
Let us know if you made this one yours and got to pick it apart a bit more!!
