In a traditional sense, there is no history of important or locally-favored glass beads in Nepal.* It is only in the past ten years (+ or -) that recent glass beads, mostly from India, have been misrepresented as being "Nepalese." Indian glass beads are shipped to Kathmandu in great numbers, probably because it is a significant entry-point for all sorts of goods going into the Himalayan region, and particularly for the tourist trade.
Other beads, including agate beads from Cambay (Khambat), India, are also routinely sold as "old Nepalese beads" that were likewise made for the Nepalese trade. Also commercial-quality metal (brass) beads. In more recent years, a LOT of manufactured jewelry (elaborate necklaces) have been produced and marketed. Some from India, and some made in Nepalese factories. Often this stuff, collectively, is ID'd as "Tibetan."
So the answer to your question is that these beads are not very old, and they are most-likely from India.
* The exception to this generalization would be certain (usually red) glass beads, from Europe and India, that have some popularity under the name "sherpa coral"—for which there is some history that may include most of the 20th C. Nevertheless, even these sorts of beads, since the early 1980s, have been replaced by new Indian glass beads that were then passed-off as "old sherpa coral." These were more often opaque orange or pink, rather than red.
JDA.
Thank you for your in-depth response, it is as I had thought then that these beads have been made to look old...
I have a friend who is a jeweler. I asked her how hard it would be to make new glass beads look old.
She looked at some of my beads from India and I gave her some to play with.
I showed her these photos of your beads too.
Basically...she said the amount of work needed to age these beads would require a lot of hand work.
She can't figure out why someone would take such cheep beads and spend
a large amount of time working them for so little profit.
You see people faking ageing with something like dZi's or expensive beads
like that but not Indian made Chevrons etc.
This would be like buying new pony beads and spending many hours polishing, grinding and sanding or whatever they do to fake age.
There's not much you can do to a cheep bead to make it look old and valuable.
I think the beads you show might just have been used hard and put away wet..( old cowboy term)
A silk purse is made from silk. a sow's ear, no matter how much you decorate it is still....a pig's ear.
The more you learn about beads the better you can buy or sell.
I don't thing=k that anyone would spend any time re-working such cheep beads..
But I can see someone thinking that the ware on these beads might be a sign of old age.
Just my thoughts on these beads
Hello Dan,
The beads in-question have not been elaborately "made to look old"—and certainly not by some painstaking complicated process.
Unless I am misinterpreting what I can see, I would guess these were shiny new beads—and they have been tumbled in an abrasive that removes the shine and slightly scars them. And in this process, it's not unlikely that some of the beads broke.
This is an easy process.
Be well, Jamey
See... I don't know about aging beads. We thought that each bead would have to be worked separately.
Anyhow....Good to know someone can tell.
See ya at the Forum
It seems to me that putting new beads in a brass polisher with some sand would achieve that effect easily.
