| Original Message: A related gripe about how beads are processed in Africa. |
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I'm distressed at the way beads are handled in the Africa trade, and how difficult it is to find strands or necklaces as-worn. My understanding is that behind the Traders themselves are strand-assemblers in major cities, where loose beads and intact necklaces are cleaned and restrung into all-alike strands of intended equal value, or commercial mixes. Even if it were only the aesthetics of the original assembly - and I believe far more than that is reflected in most broken up necklaces, beadwork, and hair-braiding - this seems to me a horrible loss of information, of culture. But I'm constantly told that people will not buy dirty beads, so that's that. Only after years of begging was I able to get a few strands of grody ostrich eggshell beads, for example. When, rarely, I am able to buy originally strung bead necklaces, buyers seem to show no particular preference for these. With coins, everyone in the supply chain knows that it's cleaned coins that will be hard to sell, no matter how bad they look out of circulation or the ground. I'd like to believe that buyer suspicion of Asian knockoffs, and the value of patina in distinguishing them, will feed back to the stringers in Africa but I'm not holding my breath.
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