Since you asked for OUR best deals/most beneficial beads your personal influence could only be small, actually non-existant.

But we are not here to split hair (hares?). It is just "that thing" with language I have (being far from perfect myself - in English!).

I can only answer with a rather unspectacular triptych or trinity of "most beneficial" examples. Still - one led to the next - each of them with years in-between - none of them thinkable without the other. A natural evolution of taste and interest, most of you might share, though probably with different beads.

Mass-made marbles came first! Not only for me - a traditional game for German boys at the time.

20 years later another classic. Marrakech, the Souk, thousands and thousands of flowers!

My first two milestones of glass, before my one true LOVE came around. Bamako, Mali, 1991/2 - the famous Rose Market, a wonderful old building in pink Sudanese architecture (burnt down a few years later). There it was, shining like an emerald, illuminated by one of the few thick beams of sunlight that fell through the roof onto the first of its kind, I held between my fingertips. An unforgettable green fire*.

* my photo is unable to reflect this experience!