It's not recycled glass! Can anyone tell me what the heck it's made of??

Back in the late 80s early 90s, the Costantini warehouse in Murano had bags of this type of beads with some others in blue, green and yellow .
It looks like it maybe this type.
We have them on display in our Museum in our coral section from the African trade.
This is a sample card they gave us at the time with their size price in Lira. Diameter size 21 to 37mm
JP

There is another type of fake coral in our display, these are from the Nigerian trade.
From the lowest to the best quality we have found.
JP

It's not recycled glass! Can anyone tell me what the heck it's made of??

Hi Luann,

Can you describe the inner material?

I recall that there have been a few posts in the past about fakes that were made from some material, painted red. I think one is included in Collectible Beads.

I'll see what I come up with.

[Occasionally the site posts a message twice. When this happens, I usually remove the content, and retitle as "Empty of Content."]

In Collectible Beads, on p. 43, Robert shows some cylindrical imitation coral beads, that he describes as "painted terra cotta." He also discusses Nigerian powderglass beads on p. 24, including shapes similae to your beads.

I didn't find the specimen I expected. It may be in an earliier post here....

Scroll down to the bottom here:

http://beadcollector.net/cgi-bin/anyboard.cgi?fvp=/openforum/&cmd=iYz&aK=84639&iZz=84639&gV=0&kQz=&aO=1&iWz=0

Jamey, thank you for the info, the closeup of the the 'bad coral bed' and a shot of the interior is in the replay I posted to my original post.
But I'll put them here, too.

Interior is beige, "clumpy and chunky", definitely NOT glass, MAYBE clay, but not like any broken clay I've seen before.

Apologies for the delay in getting back to you both, had to prepare for not one, but TWO art gallery shows featuring my work. (For NorCal members, at Corrick's Gallery on 4th ST in Santa Rosa, and at Oli Gallery in Guerneville. I'll be at the Oli Gallery preview event tonight!)

Good luck with your show.

More simulated coral

I have several strands of the pitted glass faux coral (some with dark pits, others I have to 'antique' them myself.)

And I used to have a strand of the glossy, torus--shaped faux coral, sometimes marketed as Nepal or Tibetan "coral". Can't find them, but I bought several more strands, to use in some of my shrine series. (Restored antique, vintage, and new wood boxes, stacked and filled with my handmade polymer clay artifacts.)

I made my own coral for the shrine I posted above, but will also incorporate the Nepal/Tibet coral and the Yoruba coral in some future shrines.