Here are the millie canes used in my beads.

I wandered into the Frantz art glass supply website yesterday while looking to see if Patricia was still selling beads (apparently not). The company sells a wide assortment of millefiori cane slices made of Effetre glass COE 104. This page is the transparent types as seen in my beads. My feeling is that these became available to beadmakers worldwide as the Italian/Venetian/Murano bead making industry collapsed. Prior to that they had held their beads and materials closely.

I've been wondering how WWII affected the industry in Italy. There seems to be a change in styles demarcated by that era in history. How were things for the Italian bead makers during the war years and how did they survive?

Now at the end of the 20th century, an economic crises is causing major changes. Millefiori cane for sale online is global dispersion of a formerly exclusive art material. This art developed and improved for centuries in one small part of the world. Seeing it dispersed in small lots and pieces seems the end of the end.

http://frantzartglass.com/millefiori/millefiori-trans.asp