At Electric Park, there's a guy who had a seven-feet-square table, onto which he was piling up beads to make a "volcano." The beads were mostly Chinese, but included minerals, organics (coral, bone, etc.), glass, and what-not. Amazingly, the price was $6 per strand— six strands for $35.00. Who could resist?

Cheryl and I pawed through the pile, and made some selections....

Here's a photo of my choices, minus a strand I'll show separately shortly.

From the top down: 1) apple coral roundels (probably dyed, but real "sponge" coral); 2) dyed bamboo coral; 3) & 4) two stands of fake turquoise (probably dyed magnesite), 5) opaline glass (faceted roundels), and 6) citrine roundels.

More shortly.

JDA.