Those realy are nice beeds! I can't think of any I have seen that compare. When you consider their age they must have been amazing to people who encountered them. No wonder beads became so valued as currency. I imagine they would have been worth more than their weight in gold once they had dispersed across Asia . One of the things that troubled me about the reproduction beads was the amount of grinding involved, even with modern tooling they must have been a serious task. Unfortunately in many parts of the world labour is cheap and people are desperate. I wonder what market they were aimed at initialy? tourism maybe?
Thank you very much for uploading the photos. Alex