Hi You all—and WELCOME Hermon!

I first encountered Yone Beads in 1970 when I moved to San Francisco. Yone was very much alive in those days, and tended to capture most of the attention to himself, but Hermon was usually present too. Yone was quite a character, of Asian descent and from Hawaii, and always wearing flamboyant necklaces that he made himself. He told me once that when he opened the store, the entire inventory was "Peking glass." (Nowadays we would say Chinese glass.) If you walk into the store today, you can still see long swag-like strands of huge Chinese glass beads here and there. The two most commanding artifacts remain the carousel horse in the window (strewn with beads, of course), and the huge French beadwork floral arrangement that used to be in a window, but is now hanging from the ceiling.

I think people tend to underestimate the inventory at Yone Beads. It's true there is a lot of new or modern stuff, including plastic, glass from India, wood and ceramic beads, and base metal. But you have to really look (and ask). The store is truly a treasure trove—and almost anything you can imagine might be found there (excepting only the most esoteric beads, like ancient zi beads from Tibet). Lots of ancient and ethnic beads, stones of all sorts, coral and amber, precious metals..., well it would be difficult to make a comprehensive list.

With Yone's passing some years ago, the store is now handled solely by Hermon, who has a serious and genuine interest in all beads. In recent years, I have been to the store, and while there took lots of photos. If I can search-out some of these I will post a few. Hermon has been very generous in allowing me to photo-document some of the wonderful pieces he owns. And in recent years I have been honored to be asked to string or restring some of these. In the past, I have shown some of this work here.

Over the past year or so, Hermon has been working with my friend Mark to build a web site, that will allow Yone Beads to sell online. They have made good progress—and now you can begin to see some of the great stuff he has to offer. More to come, of course. Hermon contemplated the idea of managing a forum where people could discuss beads, added to his site. I think I convinced him that the Forum here filled that purpose well, and I encouraged him to participate when he felt like it, and to arrange for reciprocal links.

So, good progress is being made all around.

See you in cyberspace. Jamey