To me.....it looks like someone GOOF'T
I had some gumballs from a vending machine that looked very sim.
That's just me guessing prob chezk

My guess is that it is a bead gone wrong, made as a molded bead with a striped cane from the Czech Republic. There are examples of the use of this type of cane in for example Mali 'wedding' beads. Only the outside of these canes are striped, and maybe the cane got messed up while melting, and only part of it had the stripes.

I've seen African bead sellers string 'foreigners' with Venetian beads on raffia many times.
Judy

Perfectly round, very clean straight hole, the black markings, etc.
A very nice--if very lonely!--bead. :^)

if it was strung in W Africa and clearly not Venetian then its very likely Czech as the black+white glass is one of the moulded drop-shaped wedding beads colour schemes anyway.

I'm not disputing that the beads are Czech, but raffia has been supplied to Chinese bead sellers and they have strung their European copies on raffia for a few years now. The point I'm making is that raffia is no longer a guideline for identification.

its the sort of thing i always look out for, but haven't seen any real or copied beads that might be strung up on raffia in any chinese context -not even at Tucson this winter-
please can someone show any images where its been used by chinese bead sellers? i would like to see this -as lookalikes are one of my interests...
thanks in advance...

And for some time. More then 10 years ago I saw Indonesian copies mixed with Venetian trade beads on the same strand. Dealers are more international than ever now...so we now have Gambians rooming with Afghanis in hotels when shopping in Thailand, for example. Just another way for beads to travel. They trade stock all the time. So we'll see more mixtures as more years pass.

Here is a full strand of Chinese millefiori copying Venetian trade beads, right down to the raffia they are strung on, from Tucson 2009 compliments of Tasart. Africans have been going to China for years. The first one to commission the creation of the Venetian trade bead style chevrons was first importing furniture. So the Chinese got raffia from the Africans. No problem.

The little bracelet of millefiori ovals is from China also, 2009.

I can't say I've seen examples exactly like this since, however, but am just saying don't let anything surprise you! :)

thanks Joyce-
a few years ago you gave me a few of the chinese ovals like those which you show as a bracelet- i suppose they are not on raffia...

so can we please see any chinese replicas of Czech moulded beads like the drop-shaped multicoloured stripey 1920s-1950s types?

it seems that the big selling energy for chinese repros is predominantly focussed on the market in USA because if any also appear in UK its tons of millefiori with smaller holes and some lampwork types.

I knew in Africa a great Haoussa beads merchant who traveled the world to supply the markets. He knew the old beads perfectly and knew what he was selling. But the world was his garden, and he called me from Hong Kong, Berlin, Venice and tutti quanti...., and arrived in West Africa with beads from everywhere (He had real ancient Islamic beads of great beauty from Mesopotamia as copies of India or China) that was then sold in the markets, mixed with the ancient beads and the challenge was to recognize them, it was not always easy. The rafia was convenient to sell the whole !! the local merchants knew it and they hacked to undo the necklaces on wire of rafia !!

They're amazing! I mean, some of them look....different, somehow. But I would never have guessed they are all reproductions.
(sigh) Just when I think I'm getting it, I realize I know nothing. :^D