Thanks. i appreciate that. Within the collection i purchased are agate beads that appear to be very old and i'm assuming as you said that they have damaged perforations so were capped. I'm attaching some pictures of them. What do you think?
You were sold a group of imitations, along with a story that is fabricated.
These are plastic reproductions of zi beads, and they are among the most-recent editions of that stuff. It is virtually impossible that these were "made in the 1970s." I can show the plastic beads circulating from that time.
The seller's ploy, "Indo-Tibetan" is also a recent wrinkle in ways to get people to buy beads. One never heard this five or ten years ago.
Chinese agate reproduction zi first appeared in 1993. I own the first bead to come to the USA that year. And I have several beads from this first wave of production; and various reproduction zi I have bought since then. View my FaceBook page to see the considerable number of zi beads I bought between 2016 and 2018.
By the way, although there are several ways to spell "zi" (including gzi, gZi, GZI, dzi, dZi, DZI, Zi, and ZI), you would not spell is "Dzi." If you wanted to capitalize the name it would be "DZi." But no one uses that. It is easier and just as accurate to spell it "zi."
The link shown here encompasses Forum posts from 2005 to 2008, where zi beads are mentioned. To read chronologically, begin at the bottom and work your way through each main topic. (Main topics are indicated where the post says "View All"—which you can use to read every reply to the dialogue.). You will pass through some posts that do not relate to zi beads. But using the Search function here is the best way to see the copious number of posts that may have asked questions that are similar to your questions.
The best advice I can give you is to join my Yahoo Zi Group, and read my article from Arts of Asia, 2002. It is posted at the Group and can be downloaded for personal use. You will find a link to the Zi Group in one of the dialogues from the link here.
Good luck. Jamey
http://beadcollector.net/cgi-bin/anyboard.cgi?fvp=%2Fopenforum%2F&tK=zi+beadman&wT=1&yVz=yTz&aO=1&hIz=50000&hJz=4000&cmd=find&by=&xcfgfs=tK-wT-yVz-aO-hKz
Thanks Jamey Would you take a look at the closeup of the surface of a few of these beads. They look like carved stone to me. you really think they're plastic?
1) Identify the material. Is it as hard as agate, or as soft as plastic? You can do this with the point of a sharp steel knife or a sharp steel pin. Steel will not mark agate. But it will scratch or dig a hole into plastic. I prefer to use a point, and to rotate the knife. This digs a tiny hole that is nearly unnoticeable.
2) The white bases of the plastic imitations are molded. There are casting indications along the length of each side, from the two-part mold. Along these lines, the pattern is slightly upset—causing little lugs or thicknesses. These can be seen in most plastic zi. (However, a careful manufacturer COULD fix these "errors" if he wanted to.). I am showing your photo with a red line drawn around where I believe the seam is (on that side of the bead), and where I can see the telltale thicknesses of the patterns—at the top and bottom of the elongated red ring.
Please test for hardness; and look for signs of molding on opposite sides of the lengths of these beads.
If you determine that the material is actually agate, these are still recent reproductions (made by Chinese manufacturers), that postdate 1993, and are most-likely less than ten (10) years old.
Viewing your new photos, I have to think the carnelian beads are also recent. These are loosely based on pema raka beads. But the melon-form grooves are too long and too mechanical-looking.
Jamey
Apparently my version of the photo was too large a file to present in my reply. So I'm trying again. JDA.
