These are the first two strands I ever bought. I purchased them at what was then the African Village. It is now a triangular shaped parking lot along the frontage road where a wash comes through.
My father came to visit us in 1997 and was showing off some of his collection of what he called "trade beads," chevron beads and other types. At the time, my husband and I collected netsuke and paperweights, Venetian and Scottish art glass. But these beads were art glass you could WEAR. It was intriguing. He showed us the Picard volume on chevron beads - such stunning photos of gorgeous glass beads!! A few months later we were in Paris on business and found these blue chevrons from a seller in a flea market area, near the big white church. We recognized them from what my dad had been showing/telling us about and we purchased them, thinking he would like them. But before we got them home, my husband and I had fallen in love with them and... two more bead collectors were born. The big cane cut chevrons were represented to us as "camel blanket weights," probably because someone had been reading this in one particular bead book at the time.
Joyce is due the honors for introducing me to the wonderful world of old beads. She wore this strand of coral to our bead society's "member's wear sale" - an event where everyone could sell any items that they could wear. I didn't buy it right away, but met her at a later date behind the Ashby BART station where we furtively exchanged a baggie of beads for a wad of bills. Was worried about attracting attention from the authorities since it looked like a drug deal! However this was Berkeley, so probably we did not look too badly out of place...
Shortly after acquiring the coral I got a strand of ancient agates from an African trader. The agate strand had a smattering of coral beads mixed in, which gave me the idea for merging the two strands. For a while they were combined into the two necklaces shown. Since then they have been remodeled a number of times and I no longer own all the agates.
In 2009 our bead society visited the Picard Museum and that got me infatuated with Venetian trade beads. But the coral and agates were my "first loves".
These beads got me started. I found them in the bottom of a box of broken jewelry at the old Goodwill store. It took several years to learn they were Venetian, and a couple of decades to find more of the gilt beads.
I've been wanting to comment on this thread, but have been out of town and so I couldn't upload a picture until now.
Here is mine. I think I've had this bead for over thirty years. I was just a kid visiting the zoo when walking along the path I noticed this bead just off the pavement where it met the grass. It was just sitting there as if it had fallen off of someones clothes or jewelry. I was instantly drawn to it and thought it was the most interesting thing I had ever seen. Because the cane slices are not fully "melted" into the bead, it offered up its own clues as to how it was made, which ultimately led me to experimenting with polymer clay.
This bead is absolutely the one that started it all. I love that I have managed to keep track of it for decades and today, I keep it in a special place. I hate to be overly-sentimental, but if I had to get rid of my beads one-by-one, I think this one would be the last one to go.
