Wrapped Wire Identification Bracelet

An identification bracelet built from intricately wrapped wire links, closing on a concealed clasp, shows Spratling treating a familiar form with real bench ambition. The wrapped-wire construction turns a plain ID bracelet into something architectural, each link an assembly of drawn and coiled silver.

The identification bracelet was a Spratling staple of the First Period years, hand-wrought to the same standard as the rest of his work, and an example of the type carried his oval mark into the Montgomery Ward catalogue of the mid-1940s (Morrill, p. 53). Drawing wire to gauge and working it into links was core workshop practice in those years (Morrill, p. 36).

The concealed clasp signals the maker's care, hiding the closure so the band reads as continuous. Early wrapped-wire bracelets of this quality surface only occasionally.