i don't think he meant that because they are not green. he plain said he didn't know what it meant but is what they were called when he was recently in Africa and brought them back.

thanks.

Carlene

that is why amazonite came to my mind. Both beads below are amazonite. The top bead has an almost invisible greenish tint on one corner, al the rest of the bead is dirty egg shell white, the bottom bead is more green but far off the usual amazonite color.

The top bead looks like a strand I have seen in Ebay a few days ago and was intrigued and tempted to buy.

i know some amazonite is very pale but these have no green that i can see even under magnification. some of the beads have a bit of pattern that makes me wonder if, under the brown stain, they are some kind of quartz?

thanks.

Carlene

Amosinte = idiom for Amazonite.

Hi Carlene,

I believe this is a strand of new magnesite beads from China. They appear to have been "beaten up" to look old.

Magnesite from China (such as your beads) are currently being marketed as "white turquoise." I saw them at several locations last year and this year at the Tucson shows. They are also dyed bright green or bluish-green, to look like turquoise, and then are a VERY realistic imitation. I have specimens of both sorts—and I am preparing an article on this topic for the newsletter of The Bead Museum.

Since we know that new Chinese beads are infiltrating into the inventories of African bead sellers, we should not be surprised to see these beads in this context. Whereas they are typically associated with turquoise in an Asian context, it's not a stretch to assume they will be misrepresented as "amazonite" (however spelled or presented), from a supposedly "African" context.

Next week, I hope to post my photos from Tucson—and I will show these things then.

Take care. Jamey

Jamey

hi Jamey,

yeah, i was getting there, just wasn't sure what the mineral was. but i hit one with a small, light hammer and i split into 4 pieces and the pieces have sharp edges and the opened faces are white and look crystaline under the scope....bummer....

so i can sell them for what they are or send them back to my trader and tell him what they really are. he is a good guy, i have dealt with him for many years but i think he is seeing things that he is not really familar with like these beads.

thanks.

Carlene

are making their way to Africa! When I see strands of beads that are not common to Africa and new, I know that they came from this years show. Some trader saw a great opportunity to introduce something new to the traders here that just aren't finding good beads!!!

Hi Christine,

It is certainly possible that Africans are taking beads from Tucson into their inventories, and maybe or maybe not back to Africa.

But Africans are also going directly to China to buy beads. Tucson can be left out of the equation, except as a selling place.

Jamey

well, my trader is furious. says he has been selling African trade beads for 22 years and he knows them! he is angry enough that he wants me to send all of the beads back that i bought from him last week even though the others are fine and i paid a fair price for them. i feel sorry for the traders that are getting hit with the fakes and they do not know it and pay way more than they should. he is concerned about his future and i don't blame him.

Carlene

unfortunately he is furious at me. i told him when i got the beads and felt concerned about them i asked some experts and he said my experts "...dose now anything about a lot beads, because he say about one of beads is new than few day later were find is old beads."

hey Jamey, do you live in CA? maybe you could go talk to him ;o)

and he is furious because he sees his future as a bead seller going down the tubes and what will he do to make a living?

Carlene

Hi Carlene,

I have been through the issues of speaking to African bead sellers to help them understand what may be happening. Usually, I am raked and told I "don't know anything about beads" (this in spite of having demonstrated my familiarity with the rest of their merchandise).

Way back in 1976, I tried to civilly tell an African that all of his "amber" beads were really plastic. In fact it happened a few times. But it doesn't take very many times to realize that a closed mind is not open to new information. Of course, the exact same thing has happened many times with many other folks as well. These days, I try to advise people who want help. The rest I leave to themselves, or to someone they can believe who may be informed.

What your friend is going to do to continue to make a living is to learn about the bead market, and make better choices. It can be a hard-won battle, sometimes.

Jamey

Jamey,

i hear you but i do feel sad for him because i have known him for many years and he is an honest man. i told him just what you say, that he has to be careful and learn more about the bead market. he has told me many times about the beads he can no longer find. i told him about the Chinese chevrons i bought from another dealer last summer and i knew they were not old and he immediately told me they were Chinese but i don't think he can hear much right now.

Carlene

For sake of good relations perhaps you write it off, putting it down to experience?

When I first became excited about old beads I bought from a Muslim Filipino dealer with connections to 'relatives' in Indonesia and China. Time, reading, and this forum made me aware that I had paid well over the odds. I saw the dealer and explained to him what I had learned, and apologised for being so easy to fool (which went down well) and he did actually make me some recompense and a couple of carved stone pendent gifts. I also bought strands from him at a much more realistic price. Win-Win.

I still see Ahmed once a week or so, and we remain on good terms. It was well-worth avoiding a confrontation.

Dealers are wrong to misrepresent their goods, but for the small guys perhaps it is a kind of wishful thinking on their part. Sometimes we have to pay the price for being naive.

i have worked with this dealer for at least 6 years and never a problem. unlike some of the other dealers that come through Montana, all my dealings with this man have been through email except for one time when i went to CA to turn in one of the service pups i had raised and met him in person. he has always told me that if i was not happy with anything he sent i could return it. but he is so angry that i told him he was wrong about the beads that he wants to end our relationship, NOW. i just did a tally and i bought almost $8000.00 from him last year so it shows how angry he is if he is willing to throw that business away. in fairness to him i think he is super angry at his suppliers but cannot deal with them now because he is in CA and they are in Africa so i get major anger.

his demands are that i return all the beads bought from him in the last couple of weeks or he will not give me a "single penny" in refund. i cannot do that because i have already sold some of those beads and since i mostly sell single beads, some of the strands have been cut up.

i decided before going to bed last night that i would just not say anymore, keep all the beads and work with the traders that i can deal with in person.

in my last email to him i said, "i feel very sad for you".

Carlene

your relationship with this trader over one strand of beads????? I think you would be quite foolish to do so! This man sounds like a reputable trader and friend! He has every right to be offended! His reputation is on the line! He just might be getting a bum rap for something he did not intentionally do! My advice to you is to keep the strand, make peace fast with this guy! You might be losing a good, honest trader who cares about doing whats right!

you do not know all of the details of the situation and have no right to judge me or my trader; we are both honest people trying to do the best we can and sometimes people disagree with us which never feels good. he and i have come to a mutual agreement.

Carlene

I think you completely misunderstood what I was saying! What is it that I said that gave you the impression that I was mis-judging you or him? I actually encouraged you to make peace with your trader friend!

As far as what you said about not knowing you, your one hundred pourcent right! I do not know you! Based on your clear mis-understanding of what I was trying to say to you, I do not wish to know you! I will be very careful not to participate in any thread you start!

Hi Christine,

It's not my problem, and no one has to paid heed to anything I say about it.

But why do you suppose that the trader is angry with Carlene if the problem lies with HIS supplier? Where is the benefit (to him) of being offended by Carlene? What did she do?

If he, from the beginning, has had a policy of taking back merchandise, why—the first time this MIGHT be necessary—is he having such a strong reaction and rejection?

These are not the responses of an honest and mature person.

Someone who "cares about doing what is right" would return the money can say "keep these cheap beads anyway."

My two-cent's worth.

Good day. Jamey

please stop discussing this; i have had enough and stop attacking my dealer. he is doing the best he can and what he chooses to do is his thing. if you do not like what he sells, do not buy it.

Carlene

I agree with Jamey that this is likely magnesite.

The brown veining may be an enhancement produced by crazing with heating/cooling and dipping in a brown dye. The beads may be otherwise stabilized with resin to harden it. Some appear to be resin impregnated or lacquer coated. No one has done enough research to tell exactly what enhancements are involved. Dyed blue or green it is commonly sold at "white turquoise" or "chalk turquoise."

Eddy Thommason from Thommason stone in Albuquerque had the GIA test some with the results that the material is a "dyed carbonate" imitating turquoise.

If it is, in fact, Magnesium Carbonate (MgCO3), soaking a cracked bead in a dilute acid like white vinegar should produce bubbles of carbon dioxide.

details about magnesite at http://www.galleries.com/minerals/carbonat/magnesit/magnesit.htm

Amazonite, on the other hand, is a form of microcline, a Potassium Aluminum Silicate.

There is no reason these beads are not coming direct to Africa. Indian glass and stone beads are sold into Africa. Chinese fiber optic and coated glass beads are sold direct into Africa and the Middle East. The so called "Mecca beads" , an oval bead with random spray painted coatings in several colors are made in a factory that I've visited in China.

If this dealer visits you in Montana, please ask him to stop in to see me in Spokane an his way through. I'll be glad to show some samples of magnesite rough from China and a variety of other magnesite samples.

i agree too. as soon as i got the beads i knew there were not heavy enough for stone but was not sure until Jamey answered. this dealer does not travel; has a store on ebay and deals via email.

Carlene

Hi Russ,

Let me begin by saying that I appreciated your taking time to discuss these topics with me in Tucson last month—especially when you are already busy with the Show. And I appreciate the introduction to Ed (the turquoise guy).

Of all the folks who go to China and get "inside" the bead business, you are the most successful and the most sharing individual. I can only hope you will continue to detect useful information and to inform us what you learn.

The magnesite issue is very primary now. That is, whether this stuff is routinely reconstructed, how it's done, and the sequence of treatments. (At what point dyed, or reconstructed, or stabilized—and how.)

I was speaking with a mineralogist friend yesterday about these issues, and he told me that (for the fake turquoise industry, some years ago, here in the US), someone was working on a stabilization process that used silica gel as the medium--which had the potential to make the finished product nearly as hard as opal or quartz. (Does that sound familiar?) Since we don't know HOW the current Chinese products are stabilized, it may not be "resin," but perhaps some entirely new process, or combination-process.

In any event, the evidence is clear that something is being done to effectively make soft materials much harder. And it seems likely that a lot of routine reconstruction happens, along with a lot of dying of materials. Put them all together, and voilá—new beads.

Please remain vigilant. We need your help.

Jamey

Thanks, Jamey, I intend to remain vigilant and vocal.

By the way, I've never made it to Beijing, yet. A lot of other places, yes, but not Beijing city, yet....

You said "perhaps some entirely new process, or combination-process."

That may be the case. At the Tucson JOGS show I spoke with the folks selling Number 8 Nevada turquoise enhanced with a new process that darkened the matrix and fused (cemented? bonded?) the matrix with the turquoise. Number 8 turquoise is a lovely spiderwebbed turquoise that was easy to break along the matrix lines. Too brittle usually to be set in jewelry. The processed samples I saw were "rock hard" - not brittle at all.

They called it the "Eljen" process after the inventor or popularizer, Elven Jennings or Reno Nevada. Unlike the Foutz/Zachary enhancement (a quartz impregnation I think) the Eljen process goes through the entire stone, making turquoise and matrix uniformly hard.

Mr. Jennings would not give details but implied it was not a plastic. Another stone cutter said he could smell the plastic when he cut the stones treated by the Eljen process.

There is a confusing mention of the Eljen process at http://www.mindat.org/min-8013.html under the name Turquenite.

ther are some more of these beads for sale! Mali old etc.... I wrote to the seller. Here is my remark and his answer

by the way: these are new Chinese magnesite beads made to look old!!!! These are NOT beads from Mali. You might have bought the there but they are NEW Chinese stone. The stone or mineral amosinte DOES NOT exist!!!!

ok it will selling any way
thanks

was that on ebay? this dealer has a store on ebay and is selling the beads there...

Carlene

sorry, i am sick today and did not see the ebay number....

In response to emails offering a link to this board for more information on these beads, and suggesting that a mistake was made, I received this response from "Jumbija":

i already knew who you're because i just find few minute ago who writer these and who forward you and than post to ebay news comm page, you get from carlene farmer from clancy mt
im not interest for any comm with you any more just move on

In some instances the head can be as hard as the merchandise.

Snap

i simply asked the group what they thought about the beads. i did not ask everyone to go seek out my dealer and pick on him. he has his opinion and he came to an agreement this morning but then someone told him about this forum and he read all the posts and is upset again now and i don't blame him because its sounds like i set the cavalry on him.

Please let it go!! i do not have the strength and energy to deal with this anymore. it is now between me and my dealer.

Carlene

i simply asked the group what they thought about the beads. i did not ask everyone to go seek out my dealer and pick on him. he has his opinion and he came to an agreement this morning but then someone told him about this forum and he read all the posts and is upset again now and i don't blame him because its sounds like i set the cavalry on him.

Please let it go!! i do not have the strength and energy to deal with this anymore. it is now between me and my dealer.

Carlene

i simply asked the group what they thought about the beads. i did not ask everyone to go seek out my dealer and pick on him. he has his opinion and he and i came to an agreement this morning but then someone told him about this forum and he read all the posts and is upset again now and i don't blame him because its sounds like i set the cavalry on him.

Please let it go!! i do not have the strength and energy to deal with this anymore. it is now between me and my dealer.

Carlene

Hi Carlene, I am sorry to hear that you have been sick, and I hope you are feeling better soon.

Love, Peace,
Joy

thanks much Joy; really appreciate your comments. it seems things are starting to improve a bit....

take care,

Carlene