Amber glass trade beads at Sheldon Jackson Museum, Sitka, Alaska | |||||
Re: Beer bottle brown "Russian" beads -- beadiste | Post Reply | Edit | Forum | Where am I? |
At any rate, the amber glass "Russian" strand is distinctly lighter in tone (and also appear to be longer beads) than the beer bottle brown beads under discussion. I seem to recall that the beads Lester Ross documented from Ft. Vancouver were also this lighter color.
Just as an interesting little tidbit, I recently acquired a copy of Emmons: The Tlingit Indians (edited by Frederica de Laguna). On page 56 deLaguna has a parenthetical note:
A note among Emmons's papers at AMNH [American Museum of Natural History] indicates: 'Beads were valued at so much according to color: Yellow 30 cents; Red 20 cents; Blue 50 cents. Chilkat.'
I plugged 50 cents into a consumer price index calculator that went back to 1890, and got an equivalency of $14 today. It also produced a rather confusing result of 50 cents in 1895 worth $15 today. At any rate, those numbers actually correspond to what the best, biggest beads are going for among collectors today - around $15 per bead.
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