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 millefiori 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.