other bidders will be along shortly... and so goes another auction. I'll share the results after auction end.

It surely must be a faux pas to mention live auctions. For this I apologize.

I have brief glimmers of hope when seeing desirable beads, but am soon reminded this is a big world and many eyes see the same things I see.

My collection of older "art deco Edwardian" Venetian Fancy beads just took a giant leap forward this morning. I love buy-it-now listings. Swoon swoon.

The description: "my husbands grandparents bought this necklace in 1920 in Italy. It is really beautiful."

Thank you for listening to my stories from the hunt, however small my adventures.

Hello Birdi,

Thank you for sharing your excitement for the process of buying beads.

Your gorgeous beads appear to be in good condition; congratulations.

~

This is the first time I've heard the category called "art deco Edwardian."

I have always thought the Art Deco and Edwardian eras are separate:

The Art Deco Era was 1925-30s, and Edwardian Era 1901-1910 ('14).

This reminds me of the reoccurring discussion regarding "Islamic."

Islamic referring to the religion and Islamic Era, the time period.

Or, perhaps you can explain how you arrived at "art deco Edwardian."

Did you make it up?

Bye bye,

Fred

I'm just paraphrasing titles of some successful venetian fancy bead auctions held by British ebay sellers.

The 1920s were around the time of the Edwardian era (in England) and the art deco periods, so it seems appropriate. I could call them Wedding Cake beads as usual, but there are some other bead types on the strand.

I'm unsure how the rudraksha seeds fit in with the Venetians, but there they are.

I notice one broken bead, but they look pretty good overall.

Hi "birdi"

Call them what you want, the most important thing is to enjoy your beads…and you will.

Personally, I prefer "Early 20th Century," which covers Edwardian through Deco. Besides, their decorative motif is representative of neither era.

"Fred"

Yes, there are book and museum words, and we honor those here in this forum.

Yet there are also marketing words... the bane of the attitude mentioned above.

Still, I wish my Early 20th Century European Glass Jewelry beads had common names. My mind is lost trying to describe the distinctions between different types of loops, swirls and dots. Some of the beads on my new strand are very 'hot' on the market right now, yet they don't seem to have any particularly distinguishing names. Beads that are very similar, yet a bit different, are not 'hot'. I can't even describe the difference, it makes only a little bit of sense. We might loosely call most of them 'wedding cake beads', but some of them veer off the norm, absent the floral dots, or with fully melted flush trailings. Words, words... sometimes I feel better words are needed.

I live and travel in a small zone. I do the best I can to find beads where I live. The internet has opened up a much larger world of bead hunting to me, yet I still build on my original collections acquired at swaps and thrifts and yard sales.

My first bead, the one that started the hunt, is in this photo. It is a gilded oval with looped swirls and pale blue dots. I remember clearly finding this bead at the bottom of a cardboard box of broken jewelry on the counter of an old Goodwill. I found many loose beads in that box over time, but this bead was very special and I wanted to learn more, find more of them. Alas I have never found it's mate, not even in the 198 pages of the Sick collection of photos. There are some similar gilded, looped, dotted beads, but not this exact combination. I was so excited after finding this bead I proceeded to remove every larger piece of jewelry in the box, to the bemusement of the clerk, hoping to find more. Her comment was 'how did we miss that one?'. Urk. Then she charged me more for that one... 25 cents. Most beads were 5 cents and 10 cents.

This is no longer the management style at Goodwill stores, so no more picking and choosing loose beads. That particular store had a fire and never reopened.

The other beads have no particular memories attached. They probably came from bags of broken jewelry, or assorted lots found here and there, or out of bags of buttons. Floor identified the two upper left as Czech.

I have more beads in my collection, but these are an early set of lone beads I've always sought to build up. They have proved more difficult to acquire than trade beads. I fade in and out of bead collecting. I'm pleased to see more of this 'type' available since my last online hunt.

The original beads I mentioned: The rounds are about 14mm or 15mm in size. An important key word was absent making the auction less visible. I decided to let them go and I believe our friend won the auction.

I cropped the photo but there are 21 beads in the strand.