Vintage, or possibly antique, Chinese "amber" beads, round 16-17mm diameter.
These sem-matte finish (from wear) are and opaque warm brown with hints of red in bright light. They are quite light weight for their size, but not as light as modern plastics. They remind me of some buffalo horn beads, but are more uniformly shaped. I can see them working well with other larger organic or metal beads.
These beads have an interesting story: My sister Pat bought them as part of a collection from the owner of a Chinatown antiques store that recently closed. These beads were among a group of giant 108 bead malas, mostly broken.
I've given these the hot pin test and they don't smell like pine, but neither do they have the acrid smell of plastic.
In some of the lighter colored versions of these beads (ASO-109) you can see in some of them that they have been drilled from both ends, which means they are more likely a natural material, as opposed to molded plastic or glass. Also the size varies slightly in as does the size of the hole - more indications that they were handmade and not mass produced. These aren't glass, so I think they must be an early synthetic material similar to bakelite and the other early resins that became African Amber.
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