the beads I posted aren't as well done as the ones you bought from Fred. They're brand new. They cost pennies.

But they are attractive little beads - and if there were a big market for larger and fancier beads, I'm sure they could be easily accomplished with the skills and materials now available in China - i.e., it's a far cry from when Rick Sprague visited in the 1980s and "the farmers" were making crude wound beads.

Are beads a good thing to have on brush handles? I would think it would make the brushes more difficult to manipulate, as well as heavier. Although these do seem to be bigger brushes, so maybe the added weight gave more "strength" to large, poster-sized calligraphy?

Or maybe they're just nice to look at and hold.