A vintage French silver chain bracelet from up to the 1960s.
It is a quite heavy silver bracelet featuring 925 silver flat link chains with a robust, chunky feel,
welded with 1800s French coins: a 5-franc piece and a 2-franc piece.
Its boldness and weight are magnificent. My partner said that if it were theirs, they would remove the coins and wear it, which is also an option! Haha.
I am also struck by the sense of imbalance created by the two coins.
It features a vintage chain with French hallmarks indicating it is from up to the 1960s,
and the insert-style clasp functions perfectly.
Accessories with such coins actually have a very old history;
it is said that it began in East Arab culture, where men would gift gold coins to women they had decided to marry,
and the women would wear them as jewelry.
Gold coins held significant value just by their weight alone,
surely intended as a safeguard to be sold if something were to happen to them.
Over time, this practice shifted to using more affordable silver coins and was passed down in North Africa,
and since that region was a French colony, they became franc coins.
The silver chains were made heavy so that the piece itself would hold value. (In fact, even at today’s silver market prices, it would likely fetch a pretty good price if sold! Haha.)
Without knowing this story, I simply thought it looked cool. I bought it because I liked the "odd" feeling of having coins attached so boldly,
but after learning about its origins and the originality that sets it apart from others, I’ve come to love it even more.
Since these were originally intended for women to wear, the length is on the shorter side, making it easy to fit a Japanese wrist.
Please love and cherish it for a long time to come.
free shipping
material - chain silver 925 / coin silver 900
size - 17.8cm
model wrist - 14cm / 16cm
weight - 89.3g
condition - No issues
