Great work Floor, you made my day with the sample card which shows the red spherical simulated painted chevron.
It is the first time I see this type on a card and I was really excited.
This bead is in our chevron book as # 488, 497 with a couple of other colors.
These were very rare even in the 70s, probably because they are hollow and fragile so only a few survived years of handling.
If the card is in the Jablonec Museum, there is a good chance that it is Czech.
Do you remember if that bead on the card is hollow?
Is the name on the card the maker, the customer or somebody else?

JP

So, I looked into this card a bit further today. I never really looked into it again after taking the pictures. I already knew that the beads on this card are not glass, but some type of ceramic.

These beads were made by the Hermann Scholz Nachfolger Porzellan-Fabrik, a porcelain factory in Tiefenbach an der Desse. This company had a second location, maybe only an office, in Tanvald which is only a few miles from Jablonec.
All of the beads on this card are porcelain, including the chevron. It is glazed in such a way that it looks very similar to glass.

There are a few beads on this card that are also on other cards, combined with glass beads. There are also some cards that have only these types of porcelain beads. So my current guess is that this company supplied porcelain beads to one or more Jablonec exporting companies.

Edited to reflect correct location of Tiefenbach.

On another card that has all porcelain beads, there is actually a reference and a sketch of 'rosetta beads'.
It seems like it might be a sketch for the order of a specific bead (not the beads on this card). The handwriting is hard to read, but here's what I came up with.
They ask for an 'imitation Rosetta bead' in porcelain, hollow, with a glossy finish.
The colors from the inside out should be white (not sure of the handwriting), red, brown, blue. And the name of Tiefenbach is also mentioned.

Great sample cards Floor.
Hereby a picture of a hollow Chevron in a ethnic stringed necklace collected in Cameroon.
No exact measurements, but from my memory the chevron was approx.3.5-4 cm long. I always found it to rough painted and new for a bead made in Gablonz, but I am in doubt now....

I have seen these as well, but do not think these are Czech. Most likely more recent production. There are Chinese ceramic chevron imitations which look similar, but I think there are several sources. I think Jamey posted on these before and might know.

dear Hans, Floor, JP, everyone-
i had an entire graduated string of these glazed pottery chevron lookalikes which i bought from someone from Nairobi whose family made beads -i suppose for the jewellery enterprise called "Kazuri" -although the strand was stolen from the shop, i think i kept an example.!!

will try to see if i can access an image-

this is a slide from my Istanbul presentation in 2007 - all Chevron "Tributes"-
and there are 3 glazed ceramic beads from the Nairobi strand-one smaller one just to the right of the centre top, and near the Krobo beads slightly left of centre at lower edge. no 3 is near the right edge.
their blue outer layer is striped rather than solid.
one more that appears similar near the centre is more spherical and is actually painted plaster of some kind.
in the top right corner is a ceramic chevronesque toggle with 2 holes, made in Peru!

Just to make sure: yours are to identify the ones that Hans has shown, right?

The one Hans showed threaded with “gooseberries”, yes-
my guess is that some must have been traded from Kazuri/Nairobi/Kenya towards west Africa as many traders who travelled around gathering goods were West African.
i acquired my string of them in the 1990s. as well as showing them in Istanbul in 2007, i also wrote an article for the publication of the Society of Jewellery Historians around that time which included a clearer image, but will have to search around when i am allowed to go to my studio to find it.

Hi Stephany
Yes we still have samples of these beads that you give us for the Museum quite a few years ago.
The two on leather are still with your writing. Thanks again.
They occasionally show up with the traders with a touch of enhanced aging.
JP

well that's great- so all those years ago the thief in my shop didn't wreck this research... !
sorry my handwriting is so messy...

it looks like the pattern on this bead is (transfer?) printed.
this bead was collected in West Africa in the 80's

I've shown this bead before, but it seems to be made and printed by the same method as your bead. And there are large, round beads on the porcelain bead sample card - so I think my bead is from the same workshop.

My bead is 29 mm diameter, and has a large, 8 mm hole. I haven't taken it off the original bail it had when purchased (Lewis Collection 2010) but by peeking inside as much as possible, it doesn't look hollow.

Thanks Floor & Hans for posting the card & bead - I think I have an ID on my bead now!

I note that the many horizontal scratchy marks indicate the exterior shape has been lathed or milled. And that's interesting to know too.

Fabulous
This solves quite a few questions about the origins of these simulated chevrons.
There are a few different types but I believe they were likely made by the same maker like #493 and the ones on strand #495 in our chevron book.
The large round are 30mm, hollow and light with a thin layer of 2 to 3mm.
The smaller round are 20 to 22m and are not hollow.
The cylindrical shape 30 x 23mm are also not hollow with a large ~ 8mm hole
#493 is a massive 50 x 36mm with large hole and was collected by Michael Heide in the 60s.
We have a bead in the Museum like #27030 in medium size that I had not been able to identify, Thanks again for showing this card.
JP

http://beadcollector.net/cgi-bin/anyboard.cgi?fvp=/openforum/&cmd=get&cG=9373832393&zu=3937383239&v=2&gV=0&p=

Floor, do you know the manufacturer of the beads in the last pic--the "Russian Blue?"

This card is from the company of Albert Sachse, a larger exporter of beads from Jablonec. This is the exporter, and not necessarily the producer. Here is what I wrote in my book Beads from Jablonec in Sachse:

One of the masters in 'pleasing the overseas customers' was Albert Sachse (1851-1921). His first business was with a partner, Franz Assam. Their company Assam & Sachse was founded in Jablonec in 1876. One of the main products of this company were glass bangles that were exported to India. These bangles were rings, cut from large glass tubes and were decorated by cutting and guilding. Later on, bangles were also made by lampworkers shaping thin rods of glass into a circle.

In the late 1800's, Sachse set up his own export company by the name of A. Sachse & Co.
This company quickly gained momentum (22): 'As early as 1895 he set up a branch in Venice. (…) At the beginning of the 20th century the company Sachse ran workshops in Berlin, Hamburg, London, Moscow, Paris and Vienna and beside Venice, it took its share in the production of glass pearls in Bayreuth, Germany. In the Jablonec headquarters alone, almost one hundred people found employment. (…) Before the First World War it had branches in Lagos (today's Nigeria), Porto-Novo (Benin), numerous business partners in Abidjan, Grand-Bassam (Ivory Coast) as well as in Accra and Cape Coast (Ghana).'

As said, one of the things the Sachse company was good at, was documenting local beads and objects, to be made into glass in Jablonec. (22) 'He managed to place his employees in German expeditions, which revealed the secrets of the Black Continent and helped to cover the costs of the expeditions. The Sachse's salesmen could study the taste and demand of native people and, by way of exchange, gain artefacts from them, which then served as models in the jewellery production.' Not only did Sachse gain great insight into local demands, he also gathered a great collection of African and Asian artefacts, which is currently owned by the Naprstek museum in Prague and the Museum of glass and Costume Jewellery in Jablonec.
'The focus on exotic markets brought the firm high profits, but it was also the cause of its fall. During the First World War, Sachse suffered big financial losses. Far-away markets were lost and new ones impossible to find.' In 1920, his business was sold to the Venetians. With his money from the sale, he invested in the production of German wax beads, but the fall of the German Mark made him lose his investment. Albert Sachse died in 1921.

Your exposition certainly supports the idea that "Russian trade beads," if they were much-involved in the NW Fur Trade, made their appearance toward the end of the Fur Trade Era (as I have often said)—and that these beads are not as old as some have supposed.

JDA.