I visited Zasada, and when driving with the local bus through the curvy roads it was clear where we had to get off: the big chimneys of the factory can be seen from miles away.
In the post WWII period it was part of the State company of Jablonex. After the communist era, it was a seperate company for a while I believe, and now it is part of Preciosa, the main producer of all glass coming out of the region.

As you can see: the chimneys are not the not the only thing giving the location away......

I only got to go into the bead shop attached to the factory, not the factory itself. Also, lots of security and cameras around. Still hoping to get to see seed beadmaking live one day. I asked for some of seed beads in their collection, only to find they did not have any. Apparantly most of their beads are all made to order. I wanted what preciosa calls 13 beads (tiny, tiny) but they were only available in 2 colours. The salesclerk told me that unless a big order for more of these beads comes in, they will not be made again.

The Riedel family is one of the major names of Jablonec glassmaking, and many types of glass are accredited to this family. A famous example of this is Uranium glass. While there is evidence this has been made before, it is said that Josef Riedel first produced this glass on a larger scale in the 1830's. He also gave the main colours their names, as a tribute to his wife Anna: Annagelb (Anna Yellow) and Annagruen (Anna Green).
The work of the Riedel family dates back to the early 18th century. After a tumultuous period from 1938 tot 1946, the Riedel heirs once again started making glass in an old factory in Tirol in 1954.

I found this book at a local antique shop from Jana Ullmannova. She herself is a bead and glass enthousiast, and was keen to share her knowledge with me. She also has an online bead shop with both old and new beads. You can find it at the link. (all in German, I am afraid)

Unformtunately, the last pages show a decay with a mold. I have seen this in quite a few of the older sample cards. The glass will last for ages, but it is always the paper and the strung that decays first.

I think that you will find that in all numbered samples, the colours 8013, 8100, 5080 and some others are all uranium glass.

I have a booklet from Preciosa 2000 that shows all of their 'special stones' and I also have some sample cards from earlier dates with the same stones. The numbers all match.

There are numbers for each type, each shape and each colour. If I find the time I hope to digitalize all my sample cards and this booklet as a resource. But right now.....I really should be working.

To be specific, in their inventory each bead has a its own number with a size. The beads can be ordered (for many of them) in other sizes.
There are 4 digits for the color glass and 5 for the more complex glass. If a coating, a lining or any type of decor is added, there is a slash following the color number with the decor desired.

What is amazing is the variety of colors, 871 total which are in their repertoire of pressed beads on file (year 2010). If you want to choose from the 2,480 different decors/coating/lining they offer, you have theoretically 2,160,080 possible combinations to play with.

The Czechs are the most prolific in this industry. I am sure that would be a gold medal in this category.
JP

BTW: I do not have the large book that I have shown here. Unfortunately, it was not for sale. I probably would not have been able to afford it anyway.

This piece is a neckpiece that was designed in the 1980's (or 70's) for a specific Jablonec bijoux event. The piece is therefore fairly new in design, but the stones are at the latest from 1945.

Saphiret is very difficult to photograph.

The cut saphiret beads in the ebay listing mentioned at the start of this thread were spectacular.

The second picture shows the rest of the 'mixed bag'

Here are some millefiori beads that were offered to me by a third little antique dealer in Jablonec. I asked about old beads, and these are what he came out with. I know the Czechs made (and make) beads with millefiori cane on them. However, they are usually of quite a different design than the Venetian millefiori beads. For as far as I know, they did not copy complete Venetian beads. So I believe these to be Venetian beads from the early 20th century that found their way to a Czech shop as part of a glass deal or through some other way?
Any thoughts on these?

I am excited every time I see some of these for sale, but so far I have not won any auctions.

Item 290763486992, $680

Item 230846805456, ongoing

The second picture are a set of marbles that were bought at a local marble/glass speres shop. Apparantly, there are competitions of games with marbles. Teams and players will often have their own signature marbles made. These millefiori marbles were part of a unique lot commissioned by a local marble player.

The second piece was brought back by a local seed bead producer from Jablonec whilst on a business trip to North America.

Below are pictures of a place were I could see this for myself. The first picture shows glass bits in a pile of dirt at a construction site. The second picture shows some of the glass I recovered from there, including whiteheart tubes yet to be made into beads.

The second and first were classic annagelb and annugrun, both full size rough canes. All three of these are probably from the 1950's. They are one their way to me know by post.

The fourth cane is a smaller piece, and thinner than the others. It shows at the end it was probably used for making molded beads.I think it could be anywhere from 60 to 10 years old. The outside is annagelb, and inside is a green that is not uranium glass.

First: making molded beads

They also have a 'Button Street'.

Wondering about something: These Czech lampwork beads usually still have some white residu in their holes, even older ones. Is that the same for this type of Venetian fancy beads? If not, that could be a way of telling them apart......

Recently I've been looking at "wedding cake" style beads rolling around in my boxes, trying to discover which might be Czech instead of Venetian. They're all older than the ones made in India that past couple of decades, so that county of origin isn't an option.

I know to look for white release as a Czech clue, if the beads haven't been cleaned out...anyone have some other clues?

Possible Czech beads seem to have a tighter and more precise decoration and construction - the "petals" in the forget-me-not motif are all nice little pentagons and not scattered all over the place, for instance. But maybe some lampworkers are just less casual than others...

Second are some blown glass beads.

The last pices was found in the ground by Peter, at te site I mentioned before. It is like a medaillion of the German author Goethe. As it turns out, it was made in 1941 as part of an annual 'winterdrive'. These drives were held every year during Hitler's reign and would help collect money for the poor. It was called WHW Winterhilfswerke, aka winter relief. Especially young people would go around collecting money, and these medaillions were given in return. Every year there would be a different type of commemorative item in a series. In 1941 it included these glass pieces of Goethe, Schiller, Mozart and Hitler. They would always be made in the Jablonec region.

You can either email the answer to me, or take a guess here. Whoever has the closest guess by the end of august 5th, will receive a surprise package. You can only guess once.....

Thanks for the translating offer. I speak German, but write it very badly. So I max take you up on that some time.

And finally, your bead count guess is noted.

I'm guessing 150 for the beads???

My guess 168

Cheers
Carole

With her guess of 189 beads, she was the closest to the actual number of 213 beads in the batch.

Thanks for joining in, it was fun.