I opened mine three minutes after I collected it from the mailbox!
:^D

Always try to hold out until Christmas eve.
Thanks Santa!

For this lovely selection of Alan Curtis grinds from Venetian cane. Treasures, Alan! Wishing you and your family, and ALL of our BCN family, a very Merry Christmas!

Next image is a venerable apple core grind also from Alan - it came home with me for David, Tucson 2007. He wore it on his fishing license lanyard.

We'll be en route to the East Coast very early tomorrow morning, and I won't have access to my computer for a week.

So I'm going for it! Here are my pics of beautiful earrings from my Secret Santa, Phil Fischman of Beads, Crystals & More! in Encinitas, CA.

I absolutely love these--thank you, Phil! My Christmas is very "green" indeed.

My Gratitude and Thanks to my Secret Santa Wayne for a wonderful box of goodies that arrived via Santa's sleigh :-) Leeann, I'm so glad you enjoyed your gift of Trade Bead earrings I made for you after looking at your site and seeing your beautiful red hair! To all my friends around the world here on BCN - sending you all much love and laughter...and my Best Wishes for a holiday filled with LOVE...and lots of beautiful beads! Joyce - Mahalo for your enthusiastic support of all of us!!!

up till 4 am getting presents wrapped and home ready for a xmas lunch for 24 grandchildren and family members in a few hours- so i just rewarded myself by opening the secret santa package that was waiting-- thanks very much Judy! lovely examples of venetians... will try to illustrate after the place is empty again... will you be at Tucson?

Stefany

Such a wonderful lot of colorful and varied beads. Each tagged with pertinent information. I love them all. Happy Holidays to everyone!

I received a lovely box of goodies from Matt. Will post pictures later. The mix of beads is great, and most are not in my collection yet.
Thank you!
Merry Christmas

Taking note of my interest in learning about old plastic beads, Linda sent me an assortment of Bakelite, polystyrene, Galalith and Celluloid beads and bits to Identify, along with some beautiful Venetian and bone beads. The long strand of light amber rounds are Celluloid - and since I've been looking for imitation amber Celluloid beads, Linda was also a mind reader!

Thanks Linda!

For my favorite thing!
A bead of a sort that I had never seen before!
I look forward to making it the focal point of a long, multi strand, tasseled necklace, and finding out whatever I can about it.
The bead feels great in my palm.
Many thanks!!
Linda

https://www.etsy.com/listing/272912714/edo-dragonfly-ball-powder-and-blue?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=edo ball&ref=sr_gallery_2

but, perhaps not. Frederick, do you have pictures of Yunnan baby carriers with similar beads that you could post? Google images didn't produce any for me and I'd love to see others.

A lovely and striking bead!

Linda,

I respect your aptitude for bead research because you are highly trained and skilled as an artist.

Having spent forty something years focusing on Japanese and Chinese beads, I wish you were able to handle first hand all of the antique beads which have gone through my hands between one million miles of air travel -especially on the trail of the elusive ojime.

If you study the two beads carefully, eventually you will see a vast difference in quality of glass and technique. Sometimes, it seems that Japanese artists have captured the concept and construction of Chinese art mediums and raised them to their highest form of artistic expression. However, the Chinese economy may eventually enable Chinese bead connoisseurs to reclaim their long artistic heritage. During the time period the exquisite Japanese glass ojime were made for inro, the Chinese were capable of making elegant glass beads in the Japanese style. But the finest Chinese craftsmen were focusing on snuff bottles instead. Maybe some of the Japanese glass ojime were actually made by Chinese craftspersons? But I doubt a Japanese craftsperson would have made beads for the Chinese Yunnan market. And, who can be absolutely certain? Historians often feel forced to neatly arrange things into compartmented boxes. At best, historians offer educated opinions. And when you disagree, you are probably going to learn more than most collectors. But be extremely careful not to offend.

We can always study the type of glass used. And we can make generalizations based upon size. One fourth of an inch is a huge difference when it comes to miniature art forms, such as beads. The perforation on a Chinese bead is proportionately smaller and crude in comparison with the himotoshi -hole- in a Japanese ojime. For proper function as a slide closure, the aperture of an ojime is almost always proportionately larger in comparison with nearly every other bead.

And no, I have not saved images of Yunnan women wearing baby carriers with such large heavy beads. Ojime are my specialty; Yunnan glass beads are not. However, there is agreement between those of us who have spent a lot of time searching for beads in Southeast Asia. It is well known that Yunnan is where this type of bead was used most often. Although there are odd examples of usage elsewhere, odd examples are insufficient evidence of common usage.

One of your benefits when challenging specialists is that you force them to teach you the things you think you want to know. Taking you where you want to go quicker. And now, you may want to properly research and write a paper on the Yunnan Baby Carrier beads. Somebody needs to do it.

Wishing you all the best in 2018 and always,
Fred

Hi there,
Frederick, thank you so much for your interesting observations and perspective.
Beads of this type were unknown to me before this one showed up under a spangly tree. Secret Santa was very kind.
You may find it interesting that this particular bead is 28mm in length X 30mm wide. Large indeed.
The perforation is rough and looks wound. It is 6mm in diameter at one end and 5mm at the other.
I've included photos of both ends. Apologies for the poor quality.
Does the bead functional in some way on a baby carrier I wonder?
My best,
Linda

There are a number of posts at the Forum in which the identification of Japanese beads versus Chinese beads—and particularly the tortuous history of Boshan beadmaking are discussed. Just as most "Dutch" beads are not that, many "Japanese" beads are not that. And many of these Chinese beads were made at Boshan.

The Etsy offering is mistaken. Viewing other offerings from this seller, quite a few are misidentified. This is not a person in whom to invest your trust.

The primary bead sellers who have been to Yunnan, and who have sold these beads to collectors generally say the function of such beads was to decorate baby carriers. I don't know that anyone has ever shown one. It remains an unproven but probably valid idea.

I am the primary proponent of the idea that these beads are from Boshan, and are not as old as some would like to believe. Certainly they are not "Edo."

JDA.

While I agree that the Etsy dealer cannot be trusted, there is agreement among Ojime Experts, that this particular Etsy listing should be called: "A classic Japanese glass ojime."

The undeniable clue here is the size of the aperture. Also, it compares nicely -in appearance and feeling- to the ojime used as a frontispiece in Dorothy Blair's "History of Glass in Japan."

Many times, a researcher's feelings come into play. Although I am not a researcher, it is my artistic feeling based upon over forty years of experience, that the bead in question is Japanese in taste and construction. Therefore, I believe it should be called a "Japanese Glass Ojime."

I do not have Blair handy to make a comparison. (I thought the frontispiece was an Islamic Period millefiori bead—but I have not viewed it for a long time.) I jumped to the conclusion that the Etsy bead is Chinese because I consider it to be much-too-ugly and poorly-made to be Japanese. I'm willing to be mistaken for my guess about origin, but not about its beauty.

I appreciate the information. BTW, I tried a variety of search terms and several search engines and couldn't find a similar bead on a Yunnan baby carrier; but, that isn't to say they don't exist.

Notice the iconic Japanese Magatama (comma) floating in this bead, further testimony to the probability that it truly is Japanese.
Although I have questioned the large 22.5mm diameter, each time I look, it has Japanese written all over it.

Anyway, I would not buy it because it looks good on one side only. Therefore, I feel it is overpriced.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magatama

http://beadcollector.net/cgi-bin/anyboard.cgi?fvp=/openforum/&cmd=iYz&aK=64948&iZz=64948&gV=0&kQz=&aO=1&iWz=0

There are no accidents…..there is only some purpose that we haven't yet understood."

The Chinese beads used on baby carriers in Southeast Asia were crumb beads, with the colored glass fragments applied to the surface?

Like those pictured in Ornament, cited in this pic in a former post:

http://beadcollector.net/cgi-bin/anyboard.cgi?fvp=/openforum/&cmd=iYz&aK=94824&iZz=94824&gV=0&kQz=&aO=1&iWz=0

Whereas your nifty gift bead seems more related to paperweight and marbles manufacture.

And I likely have the glass-making terms confused. "Cased confetti" seems to be a thing for marble collectors.

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/10269889_743-large-4-lobed-confetti-marble

I've begun writing to marble people. One can see from your example Beadiste and other images available on line how related this bead is to certain hand made marbles - sometimes referred to as confetti marbles. The example below was labeled a paperweight marble on a marble collecting website I just ran across.

From Pinterest, after searching images "1930s boshan glass" on Google.

https://fi.pinterest.com/pin/231442868330641556/

http://beadcollector.net/cgi-bin/anyboard.cgi?fvp=/openforum/&cmd=iYz&aK=62584&iZz=62584&gV=0&kQz=&aO=1&iWz=0

It is intriguing how close the marbles and Boshan beads are to each other in terms of sensibility and color. Thank you so much for the imagery - and for your focus on this bead type, Chris.

I realize with some embarrassment that I did not refer to the bead (when posting the image) as one from Boshan, as Mr. Steinberg wrote that it was when he sent it!

The only image of a baby carrier with a large bead that I've turned up so far is this one of a Yao baby carrier found in nearby Guizhou province. No doubt I need to be more creative with search terms.

It has been fun looking as the textiles from many ethnic groups in Yunnan are so beautiful.

It takes a lot of time to do any kind of research. After many hours of work, coming up with precious little to offer, readers are likely to challenge your authority and your sources. Then they ask you to dig deeper and do more. It is a thankless job.

Hats off to researchers. They deserve more credit, encouragement and support than they receive.

That's the Socratic method in a nutshell--"a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presumptions." We are richer for questioning presumptions and fostering critical thinking.

I did not know I was such a good boy this year, thank you for your generosity and taste!!!