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Original Message:   Nepalese Glass Beads?
In a traditional sense, there is no history of important or locally-favored glass beads in Nepal.* It is only in the past ten years (+ or -) that recent glass beads, mostly from India, have been misrepresented as being "Nepalese." Indian glass beads are shipped to Kathmandu in great numbers, probably because it is a significant entry-point for all sorts of goods going into the Himalayan region, and particularly for the tourist trade.

Other beads, including agate beads from Cambay (Khambat), India, are also routinely sold as "old Nepalese beads" that were likewise made for the Nepalese trade. Also commercial-quality metal (brass) beads. In more recent years, a LOT of manufactured jewelry (elaborate necklaces) have been produced and marketed. Some from India, and some made in Nepalese factories. Often this stuff, collectively, is ID'd as "Tibetan."

So the answer to your question is that these beads are not very old, and they are most-likely from India.

* The exception to this generalization would be certain (usually red) glass beads, from Europe and India, that have some popularity under the name "sherpa coral"—for which there is some history that may include most of the 20th C. Nevertheless, even these sorts of beads, since the early 1980s, have been replaced by new Indian glass beads that were then passed-off as "old sherpa coral." These were more often opaque orange or pink, rather than red.

JDA.

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