The clear green beads look like glass. Are you certain they are some kind of plastic?

The carved pink beads are NOT phenolic, but rather are casein (an artificial material made from milk proteins). (1920s or '30s.)

I have explained the issue of Bakelite vs other phenolics so often, someone should be paying me....

Bakelite was patented in 1907 by L H Baekeland (a Belgian working in the US), and named after him. Bakelite is the first thermosetting phenolic plastic. It was manufactured from a prepared granular powder that was dry-molded and heated to fusion--whereupon its structure became permanent. (It is not refusable like a thermplastic, or a thermolabile plastic—these melting when heated and hardening when cooled.) Bakelite routinely had/has fillers (such as asbestos or wood fiber) that make it opaque—and it is ALWAYS dark or dingy in color. Typical colors are black, brown, khaki, and sometimes these colors mottled together.

Bakelite is NOT a pretty material, though there are some handsome applications. Mostly, it was used as an industrial material, where beauty is not much of an issue.

By 1926, after much experimentation, the Bakelite Company patented their line of CAST PHENOLIC PLASTICS. These materials are made from a liquid resin (thus are CAST, AND NOT DRY-MOLDED). They did not require strengthening or harding additives that caused opacity. This allowed these materials to be translucent and dyed any color (for which there were dyes). Plus, by adding some opacifiers or different colors together, swirled concoctions could be produced. (The yellow ones look like amber!).

Cast phenolic plastics are the ones used for colorful jewelry that began in 1926 through the 1930s, and into the present.

There is practically no such thing as "vintage Bakelite jewelry" (particularly if translucent colorful pieces are being discussed). The only things Bakelite could be used to make would be imitations of jet or other dark opaque materials. The vast majority of pieces so-identified ARE NOT BAKELITE, and post-date 1926.

Another company made a product called Catalin--and some collectors use this name to identify cast phenolic plastics (the way "Kleenex" is used for all facial tissues, regardless of actual brands). But not everyone agrees with this practice. Many people do not appreciate that the material is DIFFERENT FROM ACTUAL BAKELITE, and they insist of calling it by that name. And some say that since it was made by the Bakelite Corporation, "it is also Bakelite."

However, while that's a convenient rationale, it is not accurate. Bakelite is a different material.

If the Bakelite Company went into the diamond business tomorrow, would their diamonds be "Bakelite"?

If you read my amber article from 1976, you will find that I characterized the fake-amber or fake-copal beads (that I was exposing for what they really are) as being made from "Bakelite-like plastics." I knew they were not Bakelite, but I knew they were thermosetting phenolic plastics. I was not entirely sure what all the specific details were (though I came to know that translucent phenolic plastics were made as early as 1926)..., until 1985, when I met a vintage plastics collector (Catherine Yronwood), who understood these issues and helped me understand them better. She showed me the professional manufacturing announcements from Bakelite that proclaimed this new material in 1926. (That she found in the NYC Public Library.) Catherine was a proponent of using "Catalin" as a substitute for "Bakelite."

Read the Wikipedia article below, and notice it says NOTHING about jewelry manufacture.

More to come. Jamey