Side view and back of bead, even the back has some great carving.

Wishing a prosperous New Year to all our Chinese bead collectors and friends!

(tried to paste in the Chinese characters but it would not display properly!)

your carving seems to be using the 3-lobed nut of "Canarium" -”chinese olive” 3-lobed chinese carved nut -

Pili nut -canarium ovatum, very hard pointy oval 3-lobed nut,

Chinese white olive -Canarium album,

or
Chinese black olive -Canarium tramdenum

Is there any way to estimate age? It looks older to me. The necklace has 4 other carved beads with frog, fish, deer beads.

without lots of rummaging I seem to have somewhere a few extremely ornate carved miniature scenes using these nuts which probably date back to early-ish 20th c. Perhaps they were some of the curious souvenir items made for export from Hong Kong at the time?
(if you have my book "Beads!" some old and newer ones are shown on page 114, and in "the Bead Jewellery Book" on page 99).

As a pagan I always celebrate the New Year in the Spring. This year I will complete my fifth 12-year cycle. JDA.

Gung Hay Fat Choy

what is that?

plus another one!

Hello WenP,

I have these exact same spheroidal carved beads. They are not very old. Less than twenty years.

Jamey

Got them in an antique shop in Scotland over 15 years ago, the perforations look old with wear and beads look to have wear.

Got these 20 years ago from collector's estate, carvings are a little cruder, but beads look worn to me.

Hi Jamey, I agree with Stephany. Feel certain that the small round carved seeds posted by Wen are Ching dynasty, 1644-1911. Originally they were used only for Mandarin court necklaces. In my experience collecting complete Mandarin Court Necklaces for more than thirty five years, I can confidently say that the repetitious miniature sculptures with the amber are excellent classic examples in size, pattern and patina. However, I also know that there have been new copies here in San Francisco's Chinatown. The nuts crafted during the last twenty years are also nicely shaped in the same size and pattern but with a severe matt finish. They appear to be mechanically cut and without that wonderful rich sheen. I find it interesting that Wen's plain pieces with the glass turquoise may be as old as the beautiful beads with the amber. "Nihao Wen"...I love old Chinese beads.

Fred: do you have any ideas about the age of the 'bat bead' at the beginning of the thread? I also have a few Chinese glass beads, carnelian melon beads of uncertain vintage and a necklace sold as serpentine(Chinese)that looks older. I will take pictures. The bead collector's estate where I got these items also had some Chinese court necklaces, but I didn't get any (what did I know...it was 20 yrs. ago).

Thanks for asking, Jan. New participant here, and am about to learn how to create and post images for BCN members. As you know, Mandarin Court Necklaces are seldom in original condition. The last complete one I bought was purchased last year from Bassem. The bone cagework beads in this piece were so dry that they were easily crushed. But it was still on its original silk floss, rarely seen anymore. Since I prefer to play with the beads individually, I decided to sell this one to a collector who is more likely to preserve the original integrity of the design.

Like Stefany, perhaps, I usually attribute the rich and beautifully carved seeds to the early 20th century. They often turn up in London and perhaps they were souvenirs. Anyway, they are still found as dangles in prayer bracelets in China. The reason I think your bat may be early 20th century is because many times the old elegant pieces sometimes have an Art Nouveau flair to them. Today, in the Panjiayuan Market, Beijing, they are usually made of molded plastic. More often, they depict facial portraits of the eighteen Lohans of Buddhism or explicit but elegant erotic scenes as only the Chinese can do so well. I feel that the deep rich patina and wear is unmistakable in your bat and characteristic of a bead well loved over many decades.

Unfortunately, there is a hasty assumption that all Chinese things are probably fraudulent while many Chinese take great pride in their long and distinguished history of artistic simulation. Occasionally, they make glass look identical to jade and feel it is worth more. Sometimes an excellent specimen can command more Renminbi than the real thing. An expensive and hazardous sport, this challenge to the eye of the connoisseur must become part of the fun of collecting Chinese things because otherwise it is a serious problem. The Asian Art Museum held a special exhibition of such pieces about ten years ago featuring glass carvings in various simulations of minerals. Most of these art objects were meticulously collected by Barney and Ema Dagan of Los Angeles.

This was sold as serpentine, I assume Chinese. The beads are very smooth, appear to have wear.

Hello WenP,

Your beads do look like Chinese serpentine.

Serpentine can be easily distinguished from jade and other hard stones by its relative low hardness. A steel point easily makes a scratch into serpentine.

The cut of these beads is popularly called the "baroque" or "finger-bone" shape. It is very typical of many turquoise and amber beads, but also other materials—and these are nearly always Chinese beads.

Because serpentine is a soft material, manufacturers can make the surface appear softly matted (not shiny), and make the beads appear to have some age when they are rather recent. Also, since the material is soft, a bit of wear translates in people's minds as indicating greater age than may be likely.

I hope this helps. Jamey

From the same collector, is there a way to tell if coral beads are Chinese? They show wear. I assume black beads are Czech.

the pinkish beads are only "coral" in their colour, of course.
they do look like glass, and one has an extra hole that suggests the bead has a "T-shaped" perforation, so would have likely come from a bracelet or strand of prayer beads.

your irregular serpentine beads have a typical very charming silver filigree box clasp and the necklace is knotted altogether in the manner of many necklaces exported in the 1980s...

The "T" shaped hole does suggest a prayer bracelet. However, the carnelian colored beads are different sizes. In my experience, a Chinese prayer bracelet has 18 perfectly matched beads in size and color, except for the one with an extra hole for the tassel and perhaps a marker opposite the tassel like the oval one in the picture. And then there may be additional decorative beads at the bottom of the tassel.

I suspect it is possible that what is being thought of as the third aperture of a "T" perforation may be only a superficial broken bubble in the glass. WenP will have to tell us if this is the case.

The Boshan industry is the legacy of Japanese intruders during Occupation times instigating glass factories to make beads for export. I think that is or was a primary involvement. Not that beads were not used domestically. But more that their products should not be expected to predate the 20th C., nor to be included in pre-Communist arrangements. I have seen Boshan beads represented as "a hand rosary"—because there were 18 beads present. I think this was a conspiracy.

I will believe there are intact hand-rosaries of these beads when I see one. In the meantime, I don't think the present beads were so-used.

Jamey