I saw Fred’s comments regarding the collecting of beads and had to put some of my thoughts in the thread.

Back in 1977 just prior to Suzi and I bailing out of California we were at a mall (closest mall now is a 260 mile round trip) just looking around and having fun. We walked by a store that had a going out of business sign so we decided to have a look. The store was a bead store with all kinds of different beads, on a table near the entrance there were boxes of mixed beads, one of the boxes had many beads from the African trade, it was plenty cheap so we bought it, well this started us down the long road to many wonderful beads since.

We never looked at beads as an investment to make money more an investment in having wonderful things to fondle and share, surly some of the beads we purchased over the past 35 years have become rare and valuable which is nice but still we buy (eye candy) and if this candy pleases us that is all that matters.

Right now I am in the process of redoing a 100 square foot room in the house that will be our first bead room, we have never had our entire collection out on display so we could enjoy it every day, needless to say both of us are quite excited. I expect the room to be done in the near future and then the fun begins .......... We get to unpack all the beads stashed in various places. I am sure we will have some surprises while sorting through the many thousands of beads and also many smiles when we remember past adventures.

Every year at Tucson beads have been purchased and brought to their new home, whenever we have trader friends visit almost always new beads end up here. Must be an addiction but as most of you know its hard to pass up a cooooool bead.

Below is an image of a bead that was in the box on the table, I wore this bead for quite a few years daily and believe me that it is still one of my favorites. Also a top view of one of our bead stashes. Once the bead room is set up I will post a few images of it for all to see.

All my best ............. Danny