I'm reading this in Manila, so far away, but now I can imagine the place - what a wonderful resource for the public, and what a pity it is to be lost.
I wonder if perhaps we enthusiasts and experts are doing enough to interest others in beads. The study of beads is not just a narrow speciality, but is also a study of peoples, history, technologies, trade routes, migration, etc etc. Maybe more should be done to open up the fascination of bead study.

I revisited the 'Gold of our Ancestors' exhibition at the Ayala Museum in Manila again yesterday. It is an exhibition of pre-hispanic jewellery, that is, the artefacts of the Filipino people before their hundreds of years of colonisation began.
Amongst the glorious exhibition are golden beads with granulations and wire decorations so intricate and beautiful it is not too much to say they are a symbol of resurgent national pride in the Filipino ancestors who created such beads.

(Unfortunately I was not allowed to take photos).

So beads carry this great symbolic significance, too.

Anyway, thank you Joyce for the visit.