The day we visited Jeff—a bead seller in Kuta, SW Bali—he showed us quite a few reproduction beads from Jember, and kindly allowed me to shoot them. We returned to Jeff after going to Java, and I'll try to show all those beads at the end of this visual presentation.

In the meantime, sitting on a mat in his storage area, I was looking at a H U G E long strand of pelangi reproductions, that I thought were very decent—in terms of presenting a realistic and technically authentic appearance. In the first photo, we see an actual ancient pelangi bead on the left, that was the prototype of the reproductions, and the repros on the right.

Some years ago, the Jember beadmakers decided that B I G was the way to go—and they created a group of remarkably large "beads"—such as you might place around the neck of your pet elephant.... Here's a shot of a combed bead (that they call a "zebra," because of the dark and pale stripes), that is as big as a large cantelope.

More to come. JDA.