Busacca Gallery

This is a vintage bronze tribal money bracelet from Africa. Jewelry African Trade Currency Metal Bracelet. The Bronze casting is of high quality and the design a classic example of the Africn style. The bracelet is the most common money form in Africa. It served the important monetary functions of portability and wealth display.Variants of this form were accepted virtually everywhere in Africa, with the result that today it is often difficult to know where a particular type originated or was used, and to what extent it was either money or jewelry. Often identified as a currency type it also served as a prestige object available in most instances to elites within Africn society. Featuring a complex series of patterns. This massive, heavy and hollow cast bracelet is an extraordinary example of the skill of the bronze caster in casting a large metal form. This is an excellent example of lost-wax casting. Objects used as currency were sometimes also in themselves desirable objects, frequently used for body ornamentation. In west Africa from the fourteenth century, copper bracelets were used as currency. After the arrival of Portuguese and other European traders, great numbers of these manillas (the Portuguese word for bracelet) were produced in Europe to trade in west Africa. *All of the art is edited and chosen by us for its high quality and workmanship before posting. These collectibles have been selected with the artist & collector in mind. We are committed to enhancing our customer’s lives by discovering creating, and pointing out only the best art we can find in the world today. We Are Taste-Makers, Art Advisers, Consultants & Publishers Of Spectacular Art Stories. Our job is to be intermediaries between buyers and sellers. We are vetting for high end art patrons. We are determined to catalog the world's most exceptional art and share it with everyone.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money

Money is any object or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a particular country or socio-economic context. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, occasionally in the past, a standard of deferred payment. Any kind of object or verifiable record that fulfills these functions can be considered money.