A bit more about me, and my interest in beads. I am pretty new to bead collecting, compared to most here. It has only been about 5 years since I started collecting, and I can now say it has changed my life. A lot of my free time is spent around beads, and all of my holidays in the last few years have included beads. I started writing about beads as a way to increase my knowledge of beads. I have finished a book om beads from Briare, am finishing up a book about beads from Tucson and hope to write my third book on beads from Jablonec this year.

I love that I am just starting out, and I have so much more to learn. The knowledge and experience of people on this forum is amazing, and gives me great pleasure.

Here's is one of my first bead pictures: a man selling prayer beads in Isfahan in Iran. While travelling on the Silk road in 2007 from Damascus to Beijing, I collected my first beads. And then found BCN to tell me what I had actually bought.