This particular "tribute" bead is a very close copy. I think I would assume they are Venetian if I saw them with other old Venetians. The red color is a little more pronounced. Note that the Indonesian beads have similar large-sized holes, and the holes are clean.

This is another case where the copies are really good. The copies have nice large, clean holes.

in this case I didn't have any beads of the same size for comparison, but you can see that the new Indo beads are pretty nice.

There is roughness around the holes that is normally not seen in old trade beads, but the holes are clean.

There was only one of these, but again, I think if I saw it out of context, I would think it was an old bead.

On closer inspection you can see that the red color is not as intense, and the glass is rougher, on the Indo beads - but there is a lot of variation in the Venetian beads of this design.

The Indonesians are making very attractive beads with aventurine decoration and with a entire layer of aventurine over a red core.

For this design, the only real contrast is that the red core on Venetian beads of this type is the characteristic brick red. The Indo beads have a much lighter red core. These beads are finished beautifully - no rough glass on the ends, and the holes are large & clean.

Several of these beads made me think about how hard it would be for a new collector to distinguish the new from the old for this style of fancy bead.

Two of the Indo beads had a much redder color than usually found on Venetian beads. The other two (on the right) have cobalt blue cores, but look like black cores at first glance. The holes are a little rough on the two cobalt base beads, but otherwise they are stellar copies.

I don't own any of this particular bead any more, so I can't do a side-by-side comparison, but I'm including a picture that shows several Venetian beads - not in top condition sorry.

I'm also posting some beads that probably would not be mistaken for Venetian, but are very nicely made.

Here are the green, feather trailed beads - very pretty, and the finish work and clean holes are high quality details.

Your comparisons and comments are so enlightening--and entertaining!--for such a non-expert as I. I'm glad these will go in the archives, this is a stellar comparison project.

This particular set caught my eye as soon as I saw your post. Beautiful!

Not sure if there is a similar Venetian bead - but these are nice beads. All were pretty rough around the holes. Seems there is a lot of variation in quality. White mandrel release inside these holes - as was the case for a good number of other beads on the strands.

Closeup of a single, 9 mm diameter fancy, showing the decoration work. This bead had white mandrel release in the hole and some roughness around the perf.

My conclusion is that some of these beads may be hard to ID once they are separated from other Indonesian-made beads.

Caveat emptor, as usual!

And for sure - once these lose the "provenance" of their original groupings, and get put with beads of other origins it will get more difficult...

If these pass through Africa, many bead sellers grind the ends on flat stones. The beads might look more genuine after alterations of one sort or another.

but they are not getting culturally used in Africa, as far as I know. I think their own powderglass industry has taken off there for local use, at least in a current-fashion sense. More likely, these new Indonesian beads are purchased in Bangkok by Gambian dealers who bring them to the U.S.

It will get very confusing. Some dealers are better at keeping things separated, some are confused already, some aren't concerned about the differences and just want to sell beads. Navigate carefully!

I appreciated a couple of years ago that Ebrima Sillah was making an effort to keep the old Czech vinyl heishi separated from the new Chinese ones, so it was faster for me to get to what I wanted (the old ones)....

Your comparisons will help...when I buy my Venetians by strands and kilos, there are nearly always some other beads mixed in the strands and the Indonesian beads become more during the last years and they become closer to the originals year by year. If I would make charts of all non-Venetian beads on these strands, new Krobos would take place one, followed by older Krobos...15 years ago Indian beads would take place 3, but today I think this place is for Indonesian beads now...not often I found singles from China,India or beads of plastic, maybe made in Africa, like the blue/white/red oval left corner...Thanks again...:)

I always believe this to be a Venetian bead, or at least made from Venetian canes, approximately 1970s. I thought it was old cane slices used on newer style beads.

I have a whole strand of them.

The left-hand bead is questionable - the red color is "too bright". But I think I'd have to see it in person.

I´m not 100% sure, that the "eye"-bead is not Venetian, but I have my doubts, because of the very small perforation and even more because of the rounded ends, which are unusuall for Venetians (traded to Africa) of this size, but often to find on Chinese and Indonesian beads.
The blue/white bead is from Ghana, made of crushed Venetian or Czech beads, without a basis but with the typical conical hole...

The hole is very mis-formed, not like a Venetian bead of this shape. I agree, It looks like a Krobo style bead. Was it made of cane slices instead of beads? Interesting. I don't see evidence of holes in the little striped beads, do you?

What is the core like on this one? It looks like a Venetian shape. It is covered with short pieces of striped cane that appear to be Venetian. Is it powder glass, or is it a molten glass core?

I found a Venetian bead image online that has the same decorative elements as the Indonesian single already posted. I'm re-posting here with the Venetian bead so you can see the variations in color and rendition of each element. At a glance, without looking under magnification, it will be easy to be fooled...

Thanks for all the comments!

They don't look the same to me. The Indo version is not true round and the aventurine is a different color and placement, applied with a heavy hand. This is a very desirable type of bead, but it's value lies in the perfection of it's creation.

The Indo version looks hastily made and missing the point of perfect roundness and fully melted precisely placed decorative elements... but they might get there soon.

I was using these two to compare the features, not the entire bead. However, look at the picture of the full strand in my first post - and with a quick glance this one looks like a Venetian bead.

The problem as I see it - if I don't have a similar Venetian bead handy to check against, I'm not sure I can identify every new "Venetian tribute" bead. Venetian beads have so much variation in shape and placement of decoration, etc. that in many cases, as presented here, I would be fooled if I did not have the experience of examining the Indonesian beads.

Oh, I didn't recognize it on the strand. All I saw was green trailing, no pink.

Sincerest thanks, Rosanna, for something that must have taken you a lot of time. This is exactly the sort of thing I joined this forum for. Bookmarked!

I find that if I have to explain something I'm looking at to other people, it helps tremendously with my own understanding.

I dislike purchasing new beads so I can study them up close, but I'm finding it's the only way to know for sure what the current "bead technology" is producing from various parts of the world.

This is especially true of plastic beads that are being made (or have been made) to imitate amber, and by extension, to imitate the original imitations like Bakelite and Galalith. Almost impossible to tell what plastic a bead is made from, just by inspecting photos, unless they have the unique "fingerprint" of sparse cracks seen on some old phenolic beads.

Attached is an example showing a phenolic resin bead next to an acrylic (also known as Lucite) bead. I had to reamer-test these before I could tell what they were made of.

I'm so grateful you conduct these experiments and put yourself "out there" to explore, compare, learn, and share.

I am wildly drawn to how a bead looks, rather than what it is or what its provancence is. But I owe so much to folks like you, who are passionate about the what, the why, the how.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for caring so much, and for passing on your knowledge and insights.

In certain examples I find it very hard to distinguish Venetian from Indonesian. I could be fooled easily. Are Indonesian beads easily available in the US now and are they sold as Indonesian?

I have not looked for them in the US. I happened to see the two strands when looking for other types of beads, and I was really motivated to have them for closer inspection.

Hopefully I don't have to do this again for a while...