The first bead is from the other necklace. I don't have a photo of the whole thing.

I ordered these 8mm rounds yesterday. From the photo they appear constructed same as other 8mm millefiori beads... wound core with three cane slices. The holes are small and clean.

Stefany, the necklace is strung and knotted. The holes are small. I believe sellers called this style Venetian Lace. I have a Hansa catalog page from the 1980s showing mono-colored versions of these beads.

How does one find these gorgeous beads? I'm sure you can guess what comes up when you google Venetian lace. . .

That's the thing, the Venetian bead industry collapsed and these are now very difficult to find. Hansa does not sell Venetian beads anymore, if they are still in business. But for awhile they were the USA distributor of various styles of Venetian beads. To find the beads I have to search through thousands and thousands of listings, just like finding any other particular bead of low availability. No one uses the words Venetian Lace.

Of course they don't (search using the words Venetian lace)! Just wondering how you find such lovely beads. The search is everything. . .

I look at a lot of listings. I remove a lot of search results using the minus tag. -plastic -rhinestone -paper -wood....... etc. A very long string of minus words actually. Then there are only 50 thousand results instead of half a million. Lots and lots of photos.... very boring. Things can be hidden, buried under endless junk listings. I sift and sort the searches as best I can, hoping I don't lose too many treasures as I try to filter out unwanted items. Then I sit and look, and look, and look.

If you don't have time and want to see good beads quickly, look at the collectible beads category on Ebay. But if you want to pretend you are at a swap meet instead of a collectible beads show, then you look at all the junk under 'beads' in all categories and spend lots of time doing so.

Try www.venetianbeadshop.com

They are under Millefiori Murano Glass

I don't recall where i got these - probably have had them around 20-25 years, so 1990's vintage.

They only have two mille slices per bead and are 8.5 - 9 mm diameter. Holes admit a 1 mm cord and are coated with white mandrel release.

all i can say is that when i had my shop we got beads made using these Venetian Millefiori canes and were told that India was now being supplied with some millefiori to use in their bead making. -That was in the '90s.
i will try to find examples next week...
similar things are happening recently with the fancy oblate glass beads with large holes and hallmarked silver sleeves sold expensively one-by-one, to go on snake chains as bracelets and necklaces...

Oh, I think Stefany means Rosanna's bead was made in India, not the necklace. The necklace beads have clean perforations with no bead release residue.

Stefany, there are a couple of sellers who specialize in Venetian beaded jewelry. They still carry some of these, but the beads seem less plentiful than the past. I wouldn't be surprised if they were made somewhere other than Murano/Venice, but they seem to be no longer being produced. I rarely see them. I found a link to a seller with some finished pieces if anyone is interested.

I had my doubts about them being Venetian. However, some of these transparent canes are used with trade beads, so I feel assured the canes are Venetian origin. At this point I don't care. They are lovely and they are hard to find, so I'm happy with my necklaces.

As far as Pandora/Troll style beads... yuck, they are cluttering up bead searches and making bead hunting more difficult with the sheer quantities available. Part of my search strategy is getting these to NOT show up.

OK, this just became more interesting after reading the bead/jewelry sellers story. Some of you might have met them at bead shows.
http://venetianbeads.com/merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=V&Category_Code=ABTUS

Having a weakness for spring pastel colors, I'd have pounced on this in an instant.

Good job!

Here are the millie canes used in my beads.

I wandered into the Frantz art glass supply website yesterday while looking to see if Patricia was still selling beads (apparently not). The company sells a wide assortment of millefiori cane slices made of Effetre glass COE 104. This page is the transparent types as seen in my beads. My feeling is that these became available to beadmakers worldwide as the Italian/Venetian/Murano bead making industry collapsed. Prior to that they had held their beads and materials closely.

I've been wondering how WWII affected the industry in Italy. There seems to be a change in styles demarcated by that era in history. How were things for the Italian bead makers during the war years and how did they survive?

Now at the end of the 20th century, an economic crises is causing major changes. Millefiori cane for sale online is global dispersion of a formerly exclusive art material. This art developed and improved for centuries in one small part of the world. Seeing it dispersed in small lots and pieces seems the end of the end.

http://frantzartglass.com/millefiori/millefiori-trans.asp