Hello Patrick,

It is usually controversial to include a partial layer in the layer count, because there is always a reasonable possibility this may be some contamination or other accidental feature. If you discern that the perforation is out-of-round, and that the unrounded part would have included the rest of the base layer, you could make a theoretical argument that it was formerly complete, but suffers from perforation abrasion and missing structure.

We do the same thing, basically, when we say that missing external layers were originally there, but have been ground-away—based on the structure of the glass and knowledge of conventional editions (that the bead otherwise resembles).

The uncontroversial interpretation is that this is a five-layer bead with a white partial base layer that may have been unintentional.

Drawn beads—particularly larger ones—were not "tumbled" until the 20th C. Prior to that time, the en masse technique was called the "a ferrazza" (or "stirred in a pan") method. This is covered in my article on Venetian beadmaking that appeared in BEADS three issues ago.

Jamey

Thanks Jamey.Is this bead hot tumbled or done via the pan method ? Or can't you tell from my pictures ? Most drawn beads that I have come across have rough sharp ends.This tends to leave many w chipped ends from age & wear.These ends are rounded smooth.I have newer Venetian gooseberry beads that are drawn beads. One strand has the smooth rounded ends & the beads from strand 2 have the straight sharper ends.This leaves me to conclude something extra was done to get the smoothed ends.(the five layer & the gooseberry bds).

Patrick