I have narrowed them down to Dogan or Chinese. any opinions?
Judy

They are often called Dogon after a certain ethnic group in Mali! Yours are quite outstanding! You do not see the plump football-shaped ones very often! You are very fortunate to won these. What else did you collect?

Thanks Christine. I finaly got out my books and found the dogan beads. I have just never seen any other large ovals like them in person and the Africans bugged me for years trying to get them back, so I felt I had a prize. I started collecting beads in Texas and buying, selling and trading them about 19 years ago and would go through 8 foot tables piled high with strands of beads, looking for something different. Often bought a strand to get one or two beads which went in my stash box and the rest got put out for sale.
I see Art Seymor posts here. Met him at Friendship, Indiana years ago and had to let him into my stash box to get a couple of his beads. We sat in my tent in primitive camp playing with beads for a couple of hours.
I was at Canton (a huge flea market)last weekend where I originally got a lot of my beads, and an African bead dealer I didn't know came over and said I had a lot of good old beads underpriced. Have been researching prices on the web all day and will probbly sell some of mine on eBay and Etsy. I have an old Picard catalog I got when I started collecting beads and found a link to their online site today. It's a great resource too. I was glad to find this site so now I can visit with other bead collectors and learn more.
Judy

Hello Judy,

I would not call these "Dogon" beads. The beads that are or were popular with the Dogons in Mali are 19th-20th C beads, probably from Germany, and are primarily oblate and ring shapes. They are most frequently mistaken for "Dutch" trade beads; and are often called "Dutch Dogon beads" by many collectors. This is a mistake—and one that not only is wrong as to the industry, but also inadvertently makes the beads, supposedly, much older than they actually are.

The oval dark blue glass beads are different. Frankly, I'm not in any position to say with any authority who made them. It's possible they are also German (or Central European), though I could not rule-out Venice. However, Venice is not really famous for making furnace-wound beads—which is what these are.

If you refer to The Bead Chart in The History of Beads, to numbers 101 and 102, you will see the beads we are discussing, and similar. Unfortunately, their placement in the Chart (at ca 1600) is incorrect—since these are later beads. The oval versions are not as rare as you might think. I would guess it has more to do with popularity or lack of that. If Africans thought we wanted lots of these beads, I expect they would find them.

Jamey

Hi Jamey,
Thanks for your opinion. I was referring to the chart's 101 and 102 when I thought I had them identified. Also, the Chinese beads 827b on the chart. Now you have opened up even more options, so I guess we just know they are furnace wound cobalt glass beads. Guess that is one of the things that makes beads so interesting and there are new discoveries every day. This is a wonderful website. I spent hours looking at old posts last night... til my eyes gave out.
Judy

Hello

In UK beads like these are sometimes called Bristol Blue, as are other collectable items of this intense transparent deep blue glass, such as hollow rolling pins, etc! A brand of sherry, Harvey's Bristol Cream, even comes in blue bottles.
The same shapes and sizes are found in milky yellow, clear, trans green and trans brown, as are what we call "Jug beads" the smaller oblates of the 1900's that appear on portieres or bead curtains and other suitable homecrafts for ladies, sometimes woven into handmade basketry. They are visibly less regular than the chinese ones or the padre beads, and Peter Francis guessed they were German or Bohemian, so these are very likely too.
Unlike furnace-wound beads of today (India, Turkey, etc) they dont have any black residue in the hole.

Stefany

Thanks for the additional info. stefany.

Hi Stefany,

It is really unfortunate that you cannot show examples of many of the things you mention. It would be so broadening for us.

Furnace-wound beads are generally so nondescript and similar, it is OFTEN difficult to tell them apart. And it's hard to know what to say to provide any sort of characterization that would help anyone else tell them apart.

However, I think you may be lumping together some beads that are different (beyond merely colors and shapes). Also, to characterize any bead as a "padre" bead is totally unhelpful—because almost no one understands what that means, and therefore has no standard to lean on to make a comparison. (You would be suggesting that there are possibly five different beads that can be used to compare to the present beads—so where's the sense in that?)

This class of beads, that have large SHINY perforations remain an unknown. I have asked several glassworkers how these beads might be made—and I have never had a satisfying reply—as I've mentioned here a number of times in the past. But I do know (that is, I reason) these beads are not the same as the late German beads (mistakenly thought to be "Dutch"), and they are not the same as the actual Dutch beads from the early 18th C. In any event, the point is not just that there is no "black residue" in the perforations. The perforations are actually highly-polished/shiny—unlike the vast majority of furnace-wound beads.

By the way, I've been collecting Harvey's Bristol Cream bottles for over ten years, to be made into beads some day—if I can find a glass-beadmaker who would be willing to do that. I love the color of these bottles. (The sherry is good too.)

Jamey

Well, Jamey -during next week at last my new computer should be delivered, a 17" Macbookpro with all the latest bells and whistles, so there is a chance that I may be closer to sending pictures. My present one is so out of date that I can no longer view the Yahoo groups since their last system update. I hope to get back on Broadband, and will create a new E-address and domain to celebrate.

Stefany

Will you call them bottlestash beads Jamey? you's think I had been hitting the cream sherry. spent all weekend looking for my mm gage. Got lost when I moved a 4,300 square foot store over the last year, and still can't find it.
Here's one of my creations: