Oddly, while looking through pics of Venetian millefiori the past week, I recall noting a 7-petal flower with the same flattened, squared-off petals as the orange flowers in your beads in the right-hand picture. Of course, now that I need to re-find that particular murrine, I can't remember where I saw it.

If lightning strikes and my brain cells revive, will try to find and post a picture.

thank you, that would be great. I would love to know that they are venetian after all. But perhaps more towards the middle of the last century rather than the beginning? The colors threw me off, they don't look like typical venetian colors. The flower is actually a bluish pink.

Judy, I'm sorry, I've tried re-tracing some of my searches and cannot discover that murrine. Provoking! Now I suspect my memory has short-circuited once again and perhaps conflated two different things. Sigh.

One odd thing about the flowers in the center of the murrine is that they have no center. In other Venetian murrine, that particular center-less design seems to appear most in those spiky 8-pointed stars on a white background. All the 7-petal flowers that I can find have a center - see the picture Ladobe provided in a prior thread, both types are represented.

Hmmmmm.....

The fluted edges of the cane, the colors and flower doesn't look right. The edges have blurred so much between venetian beads and copies that it gets very confusing. The beads are pretty without a doubt but I think they are posing as something they are not. Thanks for your input. Joyce do you have any opinions?

http://www.beadmuseumonline.com/ [scroll down until you get to the milles]

"There are still some things that tell the beads apart. The way the ends are finished is neater than most Venetian beads. Also, most Chinese beads are cut at a straight angle, while a lot of the Venetian millefiori beads are cut at a slight angle.The colours are sometimes not quite right."

The rectangular shape is not shown but there are some canes that look similar to mine. It's really getting tough isn't it? The surface of my beads is very clean and new looking. Unless I hear any opinions to the contrary I will go with Chinese. These beads came from Africa on a strand of Venetian beads. I really resent pay old bead prices for new copies. Thank you very much for your input it's been very helpful.

Again, my monitor may be whack, but the green looks less saturated than that kelly green the Venetians seems to favor.

I just did a quick flyover of the later cards in the Sick Collection, and found all the usual murrine suspects, but absolutely no 7-petal designs without a center, and nothing at all in a rose color.

The spiky 8-point red-orange star on a white background first makes an appearance in 1948, bead number 19065. That's the only design that seems to be a solid color pattern without a center. And of course, it lacks the green rosetta shell displayed in your beads. Which green rosetta shell in Sick Collection murrine always seems to contain a yellow center and red rosette as the fave color combo.

And after all that, there the murrine is, lower right corner, bead #31.

Apparently appears in different form somewhere in the Sick Collection, according to the text. My eyes are fried, I cannot look through 197 cards anymore.

The flower in the center of the Picard example looks orange to me, and I can't tell if it has 7 or 8 petals, but the general design sequence seems to match the murrine on your beads.

Nonetheless, I still think you're right in suspecting they're of Chinese manufacture. They just look too tidy and neat [which may actually be a feature!]

So if I am getting all this from multiple threads...

Venetian have very small perforations, Chinese larger. Mine have very small.

Chinese are not graduated, mine are.

Chinese copies post date when I bought these in 1973.

So I'm assuming mine are Venetian. From all the posts about bead cards, different patterns, colors, etc I'm still lost on about when these were made. Doesn't really matter I guess, I just don't want to refer to them as something they are not.

Onward, have lots more to get pictures of.

Thanks.

If you are referring to the Moretti millefiori beads you showed earlier, yes, they are Venetian, mid to late 20th century (post WWII). Decades can pass between the making of the canes and the using of the cane slices on beads, then more years can pass before the beads are sold. Bead dates are always approximate.

Hole sizes for Venetian beads depends upon the intended market. Trade beads made for Africa have large holes. Beads with small holes were created for the western (Europe/America) jewelry markets. Venetian beads of both types can be found with the same or similar cane slices.

Thank you for setting me straight. Good enough for me on the approximate date.

Thank you all so much for your help AND starting to teach an old dog new things. LOL

Guess I am am getting confused about all the threads, all the patterns, all the questions.
When it comes to these original millies you are posting here, I have no doubt they are indeed Venetian. I have seen this type of flower pattern before on Venetian beads.

It does get more and more difficult to tell the apart, especially from pictures. Some things to take into consideration is also that I have not yet seen many single Chinese copies of this new generation of copies find their way to mixed African strands. The well made Chinese millies are actually not that cheap. I would not be suprised if in Nigeria, the original Venetian ones are cheaper than the new Chinese ones.

It is when you see whole strands of millies in great condition, and with patterns such as found on the Lu beads site, that I would get really suspicious.

Finally, one of my Venetian beads, which does not look like yours, but it a 7-petal design murrine with no center. They do exist ;-)

I knew I'd seen one somewhere, but I still can't find the picture.

I remember it as orange, like the one you've pictured. But Judy says hers is a rose pink.

Judy, I think they are Venetian. The surface, from the slight glare, seems uneven enough, in that even the more matte Chinese ones would not show the same sort of texture. The pattern is uncommon, but there is similarity as beadiste points out in #31 on the cover of Picard #6. Your beads appear mitered, square on cross-section - I have seen neither of those features in Chinese copies.........yet.

I was puzzled by the squared ends of the floral murrine. I could not imagine the shape working well in the mold and in the next dip into molten glass.

Then I remembered the bear paw effect. Some murrines with drawn (pulled) stripe exteriors blend into backgrounds of the same color. This is most prominent in the so called bear paw beads where the white stripe blends into the white background leaving the red colors prominent, suggestive of bear paws and toes.

My proposal is that your red flower with the squared ends is actually a red rod surrounded by red and white drawn stripes, surrounded with white. The reds blend visually, and the whites blend visually thereby creating the illusion of a molded cane. In reality it is 3 layers. Red, red/white stripes, white.

Imagine the blue/green bead if the concentric circle was replaced with solid blue.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

Pinkish and coral colored glass began to appear in the milles cards that Koos van Brakel groups into the 1930-1939 time frame.

First we see bead 16872 on Card 162, which is a yellow blunt-petalled daisy surrounded by chocolate (?), then rose, then a green rosetta shell.

First appearance of the murrine/yellow glass combo seen in Judy's beads is a cylinder, bead 16886 also on Card 162.

Bead 17627 on Card 169 is a checkerboard design.

Bead 17657 matches the longitudinal murrine arrangement on Judy's beads, with a stripe of black/red/yellow

Card 163 contains bead 16943, which is an oval version of the murrine+yellow glass

The last appearance of this murrine is bead 18000 on Card 173, a small cylinder with yellow glass around the waist and murrine on the ends, similar to 16886.

The murrine doesn't appear on any of the post WWII cards (186-188).

Am flogging myself with a hank of beads for being too easily persuaded that anything different or tidy must be Chinese.

You put so much time and energy into searching for the information. I was reaching for my flogging beads but decided it's a bit too kinky for me. After all the Chinese beads were created to be deceptive and I definitely got sucked into the paranoia of FAKES!! YIKES!!!