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Bakelite
Bakelite was created in 1907 by chemist Dr Leo Hendrick Baekeland. It was the first completely synthetic plastic created. Due to its durability it is known as the plastic with a thousand uses which range from electrical plugs, radio casings, dashboard faces in cars by Mercedes Benz and beautiful costume jewelry. Bakelite jewelry became very popular during the great depression when people could not afford Tiffany and Cartier.
Saks Fifth Ave, Bonwit Teller and Woolworth were some of the stores that carried the jewelry. Bakelite jewelry from the 1920's to the 1940's is still highly sought after by vintage collectors.
Lucite
Lucite was made popular in the 1930's by Dupont. It was an alternative for a more
expensive plastic called
Bakelite. Lucite was used for the windshield's for
fighter
jets in World War II. After the war it was produced for
costume jewelry.
In the 1950's
it was extremely famous in
type of jewelry known as jelly belly. Jelly belly jewelry was
bright and colorful, chunky but light weight.
Companies like Trifari, Avon, Coro and many other
produced jewelry lines from lucite. for many years. Lucite
was produced up until the 1980's.
