Spiral Bronze "Currency Bracelet" Black Patina, 3 inches Diameter, 2 inches Wide
SKU: AFE-595
Sale price
$160.00
Shipping calculated at checkout
Only 1 in stock
Description
- Like a sleek black coiled serpent this 3-inch diameter bronze "bracelet" has acquired a warm black patina over the last 100+ years.
- It's 2 inches wide across 4 coils, and if it were unrolled, the 10mm thick half-round metal "snake" would be 36 inches long. This is a particularly nice piece in excellent condition.
- I call it a bracelet in quotes because anyone with a wrist small enough to wear it, probably wouldn't be strong enough to lift it. I'm used to squeezing my knuckles into small Indian bangles, but there's no way I could get this onto my wrist.
- Although the Portuguese started bringing metal bracelets, later known as Manillas, to Africa as early as the 1450s, this bronze coil probably arrived concurrently with trade beads in the 1800s.
- The various copper, brass and bronze bracelets entered the local economies as currency for trade before colonial coins or paper money became available.
- Metal bracelets and similar items were finally official discontinued as legal tender in Nigeria in 1948 according to Charles Opitz, chronicler of ethnographic money.