Vintage Jakob Bengel Art Deco 1930s machine age collar necklace with yellow galalith rings and chunky chrome byzantine chain

Vintage Art Deco yellow galalith (early casein-based plastic) ring chrome byzantine chain machine age choker necklace. This is a lovely heavy, substantial piece.

This choker necklace sits around the neck or decolletage beautifully and styles like this can also be layered. The necklace fastens using a screw barrel clasp and has a length of about 17 inches..

The necklace is in good vintage condition. My only slight niggle is that there are tiny black flecks on the yellow galalith rings - I think this is where old oil or dirt has become embedded in tiny rough areas and hols in the galalith. I have tried soaking this out using a variety of methods and solvents, but without complete success - please view the close-up photos (especially the 5th and 6th) carefully. In some lights there can be seen in places a slight golden glow of the brass underneath the thin chrome plating as it has thinned over the years.

Jakob Bengel was a chain and costume jewellery factory, founded by Jakob Bengel in 1873 in Idar-Oberstein, Germany.

Until 1920, the company specialised in the production of watch chains and chatelaines (pendants for pocket watches). In the 1920s and 1930s, it became one of the leading manufacturers of fashion jewellery in the Art Deco style.

It was during the Bauhaus and Art Deco period that designers were looking to obtain new materials and inspiration to produce costume jewellery. Inspired by French Avant Garde and other fashion trendsetters such as Coco Chanel, Bengel started to produce experimental jewellery. The pieces, catalogued 1924-1939, combined brass and chrome with geometric shapes of coloured galalith.