It’s time for Volume 3 of my Charm Bracelet Collection! In Volume 2 I talked about pre-made charm bracelets, and today I continue with pre-made charm bracelets, but ones that are souvenirs. These charm bracelets are from specific locations and the charms showcase that.

I like that souvenir charm bracelets can summarize a location with just a few images, or literally spell out the place, as you’ll also see.

Even though I’ve never been to Hawaii, I adore this charm bracelet, and it works excellently with my tiki dresses!

I’ve also never been to New Orleans, but it’s near the top of my list of places I want to visit, and when I do, I will most certainly wear this!

We most often think of charm bracelets as a 1950s trend, but this New Orleans charm bracelet showcases that it continued, as least as a tourist item, through the 1970s, as it includes a charm of the Louisiana Superdome. Construction on the Superdome started in 1971, and it opened in 1975.

One of the first, if not the first, souvenir charm bracelet I bought was one of these Las Vegas ones that featured Last Vegas hotel icons, and over the years I have found multiples, some of which have different hotels or images for a hotel, depending on when they were made.

The first Las Vegas hotel charm bracelet dates between 1958 and 1976, based on the hotels. The newest hotel on the bracelet is the Stardust, which opened in 1958, and the hotel that closed the earliest is the Thunderbird, which was in 1976. The second charm bracelet includes an updated Hacienda charm, featuring the building instead of the cowboy, a Ceasars Palace charm, and no Thunderbird charm. It is possible that the Thunderbird is either missing, or the designers decided not to included, either way, the bracelet is no earlier than 1966, which is when Ceasars Palace opened.

This charm bracelet is one of my favorites as it represents Los Angeles. It includes a wonderful charm of the Hollywood Bowel, a camera man, a pagoda, likely representing Chinatown, a laughing buddha, perhaps to represent Little Tokyo, Farmer’s Market, a plane, likely to represent the Los Angeles Air Force Base, and a dancing señorita to represent Olvera Street. There is a charm missing, and I wonder what it could have been! The Air Force base opened in 1962, likely dating this bracelet to sometime after that.

I have showcased the next charm bracelet a few times on the blog, as it is from one of my favorite places, Knott’s Berry Farm.

When I bought this I didn’t know that much about Knott’s aside from my first visit in 1996, and thought all of the charm made sense with the exception of the seal on the far left! I was with my dad when I found it, and he informed me that Knott’s had a seal pool at one point. The seal pool was part of a petting zoo area called Pet Land, which opened in 1955, but closed in 1969 to make way for Fiesta Village, which dates this bracelet between those years.

Some souvenir charm bracelets were more literal with where they were from, and letter charms were used to spell out locations, sometimes with an added charm at the end, often the state if it was a US location.

I don’t have too many of the letter ones, as I think they are a tad dull, but if I find them cheap enough I’m happy to add them to the collection!

Do you have any souvenir charm bracelets like these? If so where from?

The next volume will be the fourth, and final, where I will showcase pre-made Disney charm bracelets.

Vol. 1: Personal Charm Bracelets
Vol 2: Pre-Made Charm Bracelets
Vol 3: Pre-Made Souvenir Charm Bracelets
Vol 4: Pre-Made Disney Themed Charm Bracelets