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I already thought some of you might be as excited as I was! The button collectors' website is actually the site that introduced me to the dump. I was doing a general search on the bapterosses factory, and found this site. I contacted Jane Quimby, a button collector, and she was very friendly and helped me find it. She also told me that a few years ago, two men who are not connected to the factory actually bought the dump site. They intend to at some point maybe start charging people, but this has not yet happened. This would also not be a real issue for the bead collectors, considering that it's the tile gatherers that take out loads more. Small glass tiles are pretty expensive, and here you can just pick them up in any colour or shape you like. Generally in the town, they do not go around advertising the existence of this site. At both the museum and at the tourist office they will tell you it is not accessible or does not exist. There may be two reasons for this. The first is that it can be pretty dangerous to go digging. You can easily slip, fall, and some tiles can be sharp as well. Second reason is that there is still a factory of glass and ceramic tiles that obviously prefers people to buy their goods, instead of looking for old ones for free. I will be posting more on my blog later, including some video material. If anyone is interested in going, I would be happy to share specific directions and advice on where and how to dig through email. It could also be fun if people were serious about going, to go with a few people together. Briare is accesible by train. The tri-coloured beads were pretty rare. I only found the ones shown in the picture and a few broken ones. They look more fragile than the others. I also included a picture from a sample card from the museum that shows this style of beads. About the machinery going to Morocco. On the link below from africantradebeads.com newly made prosser beads from Morocco are shown. Supposedly from Czech equipment, but more likely from the Bapterosses factory I would think. I thought someone from africantradebeads.com also visited BCN (not sure) so perhaps he can elaborate where he got them. All rights reserved by Bead Collector Network and its users |
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