| Original Message: Re: My questions: Chinese? Soaked in hydrofluoric acid? Then polished? Therefore salmon effect? |
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Dear Fred, I've been mulling over this bead and thinking about hydrofluoric acid etc. and this is what I can observe:
At one end of the perforation there is a very shiny area, gently sloping away from the hole, the rest of the plane around the hole is more perpendicular to the hole.
On the other end of the bead there is a gentle little groove at the edge of the perforation.
If I take the string that I've got the bead on and bounce it around, the bead always settles in the same way. Slightly lifted on the sloping side with the slope facing up, slightly down on the other end with the string in the gentle little pocket - always with the same plane facing up.
The areas where the conchoidal fractures can be seen exist on the top and bottom plane of the bead as it is suspended thus. The two perpendicular sides of the bead, front and back, are nearly perfectly smooth - except that the banded lines in the carnelian form ridges wherever they are paler in color than the deep salmony pink of the bead.
So here's a story.. the bead was made a long time ago by someone with lots of skill. The craftsman chose a banded carnelian, paler and with a lot more banding than one would typically see in a Pema Raka - but there are probably many versions of many kinds of beads made over thousands of years and vast territory that stone beads were made around the Himalayas. At some point long ago it was buried or stored in such a way that it froze and thawed creating the blemishes in the surface. It was dug up at some point, worn by someone - then worn and worn and worn until many of the surface blemishes were completely effaced - except for the surfaces not meeting with friction which retained the evidence of the conchoidal fractures.
The seams of paler stone in the bands is harder than the darker stone, so the rubbing of skin and cloth wore grooves between the harder stuff - like wind and sand will do with the grain of wood.
Fast forward…
It shows up in a necklace at Goodwill with some old blue and white cane Venetian beads, a couple of small pieces of nice turquoise, a couple of bright orange tile beads like you see on newer Naga necklaces, and a couple of sweet little silver beads which look like they might be from India.
An artist frustrated by a bad day in the studio bellies up to the jewelry counter and sees an inch of the worn Venetian cane beads through a baggie full of crap and decides to wait until the gal behind the counter is able to put the new stuff on display. After an interminable 10 minutes, the counter girl dumps the baggie and allows the artist to pick up the necklace and accept a gift from the universe.
Could be, right?
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