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A silver identification bracelet, this piece is among the most directly documented objects in Spratling's wartime output, pictured in the 1943 Montgomery Ward Christmas Book at a price of $8.75. The identification bracelet was a popular wartime form, a plain engravable band, and Spratling's handwrought version brought Taxco silver to that broad American market.
The bracelet dates to the First Design Period, 1931 to 1946. The identification bracelet is specifically the form that survived in the Montgomery Ward relationship: by the Fall 1945 catalogue, the arrangement carried a hand-wrought identification bracelet of "Spratling silver" (Morrill, p. 53), making this design a key marker of that commercial chapter.
A dated, priced identification bracelet from the Montgomery Ward years is a precise record of how Spratling's handwrought silver reached a national audience during the war. Its appearance in the 1943 catalog anchors it firmly to a moment and a price in the workshop's mass-market history.
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