I love charm bracelets. My mother received a silver one for her 16th birthday in 1944. Her parents gave her the bracelet and the lock, and each guest at her party brought her a charm. I loved it as a little girl and she gave it to me when I was about 15. The bracelet and charms are very heavy and solid.
Since then I have had many charm bracelets. I had a silver-coloured one when I was about 12, collected from the charms in Christmas puddings. Do they still do that? Then I had a gold-coloured, one collected from free charms they had in Raadsal coffee in the 70s. The colour soon wore off but I loved it!
Charms are wonderful – your loved ones can buy them for you or you can buy them for yourself for special occasions. I especially love getting one in each place I travel to.
With traditional charms it is often best to have the rings soldered to the bracelet so that you don’t lose them.
Here is my mother’s one. I haven’t worn it a while so it is a little tarnished. Because of all the detail it takes a while to get nice and clean so I thought you would rather see a tarnished one than not see it at all!
The charms are:
- Kruger shilling
- working whistle
- elephant
- mannekin pis
- horse
- typewriter with moving parts
- working scissors
- carriage with moving wheels
- bulldog
- horseshoe and four-leaf clover
- pick and shovel
- wishbone
- key and heart
- gloves and walking stick
- two charms fell off before I had all the charms soldered on – a sixpence from the year my mom was born, and a beautiful Coke bottle.