Avon Abalone Bracelet

An oval of abalone set into silver tone, flanked by two open links, with a band of fluted gold at each shoulder. The shell does all the work. Turn your wrist and it runs green to blue to a kind of bronze, because that is what nacre does. No two pieces of it are alike.

Signed Avon on the reverse, which places it 1971 or later. Avon did not sell a full jewelry collection until that year, but the company had been doing something more interesting since 1886: putting a catalog and a sample case into the hands of women and letting them earn their own money in their own neighborhoods, decades before those women could vote.

Which is why a great many American jewelry boxes have an Avon piece somewhere at the bottom, and why a lot of those were the first thing a woman ever bought with money that was hers. That is not nothing. That is most of what this brand actually is.

Wear it stacked with better things. It holds its own.

Details

• Signed Avon on the reverse of the center bezel
• 1971 or later
• Silver tone with fluted gold tone accents at the shoulders
• Oval abalone shell cabochon
  
• Good vintage condition, some darkening to the silver tone finish

Wear it to remember: the first thing you ever bought yourself still counts.