Here's the only BCN discussion I could find after a quick search [see link]

I bought beads like this from Hands of the Hills in the late 1980s - they were getting them in Thailand, from Thai traders who'd bought them from the Chinese in Boshan [my memory is probably shaky, so take all that with a grain of salt].

Some of the fun of eBay went away when they decided to hide all the bidder id's...

The big focal one does look like the Chinese with the lonely murrini inserts...I have one pink one, also from HoH.

Here's one of the auction images.

Y'know, come to think of it, the beads I bought from Hands of the Hills were also pink. It will be interesting to see what the pumpkin-colored beads look like in person.

Unsolved mystery: necklace assembled in the Orient prior to WWII? Or in the 80's? And where? _Not_ Murano, I suspect ;^)

I'm leaning toward the hodge-podge category...I could make a better guess in person. The screw-barrel clasp doesn't strike me as any older than 1970s. I can't tell exactly what the crimp/finishing system is. The focal, as observed, could be Chinese.....age?.....the white-base crumb deco ones appear to be Japanese, maybe vintage post WW2, the amber-tone rondelles could be Czech, the little amber-tone bicones could even be 1980s India....the big opaque orangey one....haven't a clue! Anyway, you've got your money's worth in entertainment value and then some!

The Japanese/Chinese beads have a distinctive spiral millefiore cane slice - Jamey suggests imagining a row of thin canes rolled up like a jelly roll, then sliced.

And the trailing often seems to be a swirling combination of red/yellow/green - at least on the more recent examples that I'm more familiar with.

You can see these beads at Hands of the Hills' website in the link. So maybe my little necklace is from China?

Hi Chris,

Looking at the link to Steve Dunning's page, I would suspect that many of the beads shown are pretty new, and not the early-20th C. beads they formerly sold (that were very pricey when I bought some about four or five years ago). They are not even the revival beads from the late 1980s! Two or three years ago, I bought a strand of brand new similar-looking beads at a store in Santa Monica. The whole strand was quite inexpensive, and the beads do not resemble the old beads in details. Even the canes look different—like a new batch. The beads I bought look just like the ellipsoidal sky-blue beads Steve shows on that page.

It's too bad Steve refers to these as "Peking glass," since this is a name that has been out of favor for over twenty years..., and anyway they are made in Boshan.

Jamey

Upper left, pink.....HoH doesn't have these any more last I checked. The lower left, pink are nice repros and I believe the HoH ones on the page you show are new too.

Matt, owner of Tiger-Tiger, has recently moved from the SF bay area to Thailand and his site is having work done.

Oh well, since the entire history of glassmaking is less than 5,000 years old, readers of Matt's page should use a lot of salt with this "information."

There's no evidence that Chinese glass-beadmakers had any sort of handle on millefiori (nor ANY mosaic-glass techniques) prior to the Japanese occupation of the early 20th C. The heyday of this production was the 1930s.

And again, "Peking glass"..., decidedly no.

Jamey -- From DC, preparing to attending the Inauguration later today.

and I do wonder how he substantiates that claim in his mind.

The other day bought from ebay.
Although the US register seller said they were 18th~19th China glass beads, but I think they were new China-made tourist keepsake......worse than exquisite Indonesia reproduction beads.

may actually be one of the beads produced, as Jamey has deduced, during the 1930s. Notice the unusual color of the base glass, the blue cane in the center of the millefiori (versus green), the centering of the millefiori rather than their random scattering around the bead, and the more dense trailwork forming a "frame" along the margins rather than haphazardly applied wisps.

The other round yellow glass beads are actually quite nice, but an age of over 20 years may be doubtful? Although the very newest beads seem to lack the nice bubble-free glass of earlier versions.

Jamey reminded me of some beads I've had stuck away in a drawer for about 20 years - purchased from Steve & Duangporn at Hands of the Hills, when they were first starting to import Chinese beads collected in ChangMai.

Note: 1) the colors 2) the millefiori with yellow canes and red centers 3) the millefiori with yellow canes and green center 4) the millefiori with red canes and green center 4) the centering of the millefiori, and 5) the trailing done as a frame for the centered millefiori.

So I'm guessing these are the Chinese-made beads produced during Japanese occupation in the 1930s.

Jamey reminded me of some beads I've had stuck away in a drawer for about 20 years - purchased from Steve & Duangporn at Hands of the Hills, when they were first starting to import Chinese beads collected in ChangMai.

Note: 1) the colors 2) the millefiori with yellow canes and red centers 3) the millefiori with yellow canes and green center 4) the millefiori with red canes and green center 4) the centering of the millefiori, and 5) the trailing done as a frame for the centered millefiori.

So I'm guessing these are the Chinese-made beads produced during Japanese occupation in the 1930s.

Were these the "new" elements in glass technology that produced the vivid red? I can't recall the chronology of who started using this stuff when...

Henley's Twentieth Century Formulas, Recipes, and Processes, in case someone want to whip up a batch of red glass on their stovetop...

See page 61 for brief discussion of both -

Yellows...sulpher, cadmium, uranium

Reds...copper, gold, selenium

And see Chinese Glass Beads (also in the same book) on p 85 nice examples of the beads being discussed - Steve of HoH is on the acknowledgements list.

Though the photos leave a lot to be desired, I still love this book. It's just a wonderful overview and full of good information. It's out of print as far as I know, but still available new from Amazon for 13.57...a great value.

Peter has promoted the idea that the Chinese produced a translucent red glass long before it was available from Europe, and that this was a copper-red glass (whereas European copper-red glass is the opaque material we all know well throughout Venetian bead production from their early production times, commonly called "brick-red," or "carmine red" when well modulated.

The translucent Chinese glass has a dusky tone. Since it is not opaque, it's difficult to compare it to brick-red glass, or to characterize its color as a "dull red" or "bright red", as one can do with European copper reds and selenium/cadmium reds (the latter being almost stridently bright).

How the Chinese created or acquired the bright red glass seen in the 20th C. Boshan beads is a mystery to me. I haven't had it analyzed, so I don't know what the colorant may be. It is easiest to speculate that this is imported Venetian glass. However it is an unpopular idea to suggest the Chinese imported European glasses—in spite of the fact that it can be safely concluded that their avventurina beads (and other artifacts) were made with Venetian glass. The Chinese resist such suggestions, and many people who are not informed about glass also tend to reject the suggestion. However, I strongly recommend it as a practical idea. And, it is well known that Venice exported specialty glasses abroad, in the form of "ingots" for the use of foreign industries.

That no translucent red glass was produced in Europe from an early time is a mistake! There are several examples of translucent red glass in the stained glass windows of several Medieval Catholic cathedrals. However, I don't doubt this glass was rare, and that perhaps few glassmakers knew how to produce it.

In any event, though I think these issues are interesting and important, glass chemistry is not really my area. Plus, I have no facility for having analyses performed. This is something James Lankton is more hands-on with—and I'm glad someone is pursuing it.

From Annapolis, MD, this morning.

Jamey