Love Venetians, but lately I've gotten into carved & decorated phenolic resin beads.

The silver pendant is for design comparison. It's from Morocco. The phenolic beads are sourced in Mauritania, Mali and Morocco.

The ones on the top strand are spectacular. They must be hard to find in perfect condition I image they are fragile.

The loose "drilled out" bead on the upper right has a through crack in one of the thinnest sections, but otherwise I have run across very few chipped or damaged phenolic beads. I can imagine that any beads broken in use or from reworking were just used to make smaller beads.

This is one plastic that will be around for a long while since it is thermoset - will not melt and very resistant to temperature, chemicals, and surface wear. It has good strength although somewhat brittle.

the "culture" of the beads transcends the phony modern colonial concepts of Mali, Mauritania, and Morocco. Can you tell us who's really behind these beads?

I am currently searching for any information related to these beads that is better than hearsay. But that's all I have at the moment, except for a few people who have told me where they purchased similar beads, which was in the countries mentioned.

Great eye you have. That is the first one of these type of beads I ever found and the only one that came on a strand from the West African trade.
It has a great patina on it not the super high gloss of like all the other.

One, matte from wear from the African trade, the other, still shiny, European market. Both about the same size, slightly longer than one inch. Love these longitudinally fused cane beads!

I love the picture, great composition of red, white and blues. Nice to see another one of these out of the trade too.

I love yours and Rosanna's beads!

David did the photo, I think for a 4th of July a year or 2 back...I like it too!

Masterfully reworked by rosetta, not large (25 x 15,8 mm) but n*I*c*E

I just saw some of your bead listings. It reminded me to read BCN. Now look at what you've done! You have the most awesome collection ever.

Drool.

King of beads.

I'm glad to hear you have turned your attention to ancient beads.

Thank you for the awesome photos, so very beautiful.

lol, Where did you hear that not true rumor? I am a Venetian freak through and through unfortunately:)

Great strands and beads....such an enjoyable treat to see them here! Even better to own them and enjoy them in person :-) I just posted a lot of pictures of strands and loose Trade beads on our FB page - Beads, Crystals and More. I hope you'll visit and take a look or come visit us when you're in Southern California in Encinitas.

Wayne, I hope one day you will publish a beautiful book of larger than life color photos of your glorious bead collection... or fine art prints. I hope you can find a way to share your wonderous collection and inspire other bead collectors of the future.

As for my little collection:

The bottom two strands are wearable necklaces. The others are waiting.

I never intended to collect spotted beads. The two necklaces were won at auction or found fixed price, both for reasonable prices, so how could I pass them up.

Then I found the green beads, and swooning with excitement I purchased them immediately, no matter the cost. The story (stories sell beads) is that they were in a trunk in New England for 80 years or more. Prior to that they were unsold inventory from a closed trading post in Oklahoma... or so the story goes. The glass, the swirl at the bead holes, the double dots... all are consistent with Venetians of old. Yet I have not found a photo of these exact beads in this color, not in the Picard books/website nor the full Sick bead card collection (on CD).

The aqua w/ red dot beads were a dubious purchase. I'm not quite sure if they are Venetian or not. The color is strong... not sure what to do with them.

True or not some stories associated with beads can be fun as longs as we take them for what they are stories. In the end its the beads that matter and those green are real nice. Great find thanks for sharing.

I have always loved the raised eye beads as well. Here are a couple that I found with my 60 plus strings:

Here is an interesting "spotted eye" bead dating from about the 10th to 11th century AD.