1940s Bakelite Bangle Stack of Four

Bakelite 1940s red, butterscotch, cream corn and brown set of 4 wonderful matching bangles, deeply leaf and thumb carved, each 2-1/2" by 3/4" by 1/3" (6.4 by 1.9 by .8 cm). These wonderful colors are great fun to mix and match!

Leo Beakeland (1863 -1944), a Belgian who had moved to America, was the inventor of Bakelite. Made by the condensation of phenol and formaldehyde in the presence of a catalyst and used for everything from tools and telephones to jewellery, "Bakelite" is frequently used as a generic name for all phenol formaldehyde, including Catalin and Marblette, which came later and in a wider range of colors. Bakelite is a thermoset plastic, meaning that once cast or molded and hardened, it will not melt, burn or dissolve. It can only be worked by carving, sawing, tumbling, painting and gluing.

Bakelite jewellery was at its zenith from the late 1920s till the start of WWII. The Depression era of the 1930s gave the whimsy, colourful and cheerful look of bakelite jewellery the perfect market. The sophisticated Deco and machine age look of some of the pieces made them fashion-forward for their time and timeless for ours.