It all started simple enough - gifts from my folks over the past few years - a beautiful pin and earring set, and a couple of delightful bangles. I was told, sometime back, that a true collection of anything starts with 7 pieces. A collection in the making - it was off to a good start, but may have spiraled out of control...in a good way.
What started as 3 (if you count the pin/earrings as a set), has fast evolved into this...a
COLLECTION! A collection of
BAKELITE - beautiful, Depression Era cast phenolic resin costume jewelry. Yes, PLASTIC, and they make me very happy, indeed!
Taken from "The Bakelite Jewelry Book", Bakelite was "emblematic of a unique culture that only could have blossomed between a depression and world war. A sign of the times, Bakelite baubles were a valentine to optimism, a what-the-hell gaiety, a feeling of "making hay while the sun shines". So what if you had no money! Just pin some dime-store cherries on your old blue serge lapel, tilt your felt chapeau, and go get 'em! Like Fiestaware, cocktail shakers, and bridge parties, Bakelite jewelry was indisputably compatible with a national mind-set...it is definitely a walk on "the sunny side of the street."
Invented in 1907, with most of the jewelry being produced between the years of 1933 and 1941, Bakelite was used in radios, telephones, auto parts, silverware handles (remember those knives your grandparents used to have?), buttons...and beloved adornments. I love all the jewelry pieces, but seem to have a special affinity for the bangles.
Chunky, clunky (Bakelite has a very distinct "clunk" to it...definitely not the same sound as when you clink two plastic bracelets together), stackable BANGLES - bright and happy, at home on my arm. The zigzag pieces were Mother's Day gifts from my kids this year...pristine, and probably never worn, from the looks of them - they've been worn now! Bakelite was cast in bracelet blanks (tubes), or flat pieces, and then completely
hand machined and carved, so there are never two pieces exactly identical - decorative strokes may be be close in design from bracelet to bracelet, but it was all in the hands of the individual craftsman.
I have a few spots open in the collection, still (I am sure it will never be closed to auditions, however)...with one expected to arrive at my door any day now, there is a big open space for a beautifully carved, ever elusive, red one, and I will be looking for that when I go back home this summer (the small red spacer in my possession just does not "cut it", though I love each and every piece...I want "substantial", and know that red is highly prized). It will be the
only thing I have my sights set on, but somehow I have a feeling, will probably
not be the only thing brought back.
Start a collection of your own, whatever it may be...something happy; something cherished; something to make you smile with delight; something to call your own. Drop by
Vintage Thingie Thursday at Colorado Lady to take in more great collections, or visit some folks with a little more self control and simple, single items. As we head into another weekend, make it safe...
