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Known to Spratling himself as "double half moons," this belt buckle resolves a functional fastening into a clean play of two crescent forms, the kind of pared silhouette that defined his approach to silver. The design needs no stone or applied ornament; its interest lies entirely in the rhythm of the paired curves and the weight of the handwrought metal.
The buckle was a popular one, produced for about ten years from 1957 until Spratling's death in 1967, with a wholesale cost in 1957 of $4.19. Its decade-long run marks it as one of the staples of his late catalog rather than an experiment, a design that earned its place through repeated production.
Belt buckles were among the earliest objects Spratling's workshop made, going back to the heavy silver buckles of his first year, and the double half moons carry that tradition into his final period. A long-running, named buckle design of plain silver sits squarely in the line of work the Taxco revival was built on.
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