Rare shape antique Venetian White Heart beads: long thin cylinders 4-5mm diameter by 15-23mm long. These were the only small White Hearts I found in Tucson this year and I bought them all to get a good deal which I'm passing on.
The looked terrible and I don't think the young vendor knew what they were, but I was pretty sure they'd clean up nicely and they did!
These are slightly larger than AFS-265
Named for their white core covered by a thin layer of translucent red glass, these beads were traded from Europe to every inhabited continent. Also known variously asCornaline d'Aleppofor their resemblance to carnelian beads coming east from India through Syria and Turkey, orHudson Bay Beadsbecause early settlers and Mountain Men in that area traded them to Native Americans for pelts.
Developed in the 1600s, and produced mostly in Italy, but later also in Bohemia (now Czech Republic) and France, they had a lovely soft red pomegranate or light burgundy color until selenium replaced gold in the mix in 1890s. Selenium gave them a much brighter, harsher red. Selenium was abandoned in the 1930s because it was more expensive than gold at that time, but by then the global bead trade was winding down and the gold price keeps rising, so it's safe to say that essentially all the softer red beads are pre-1900.
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