Handmade Designer Necklaces - African and Murano glass beads

For many centuries glass beads were made in Murano Italy and used for trade in Africa. Presently, these trade beads have become rare and expensive, if you can find them at all.
Andrea Bergart and Barbara Adner, adner-bergart.com have combined their collections of antique and new African beads and vintage Murano glass to create unique and beautiful necklaces with a history. These necklaces are made from 100 year old glass beads called Bodum and Kings beads as well as the modern African beads shown above. These necklaces are sold at the Peabody Essex Museum Gift Shop in Salem, Massachusetts, USA. http://www.pemshop.com.
The black and white beads in the necklace shown above are ceramic from Niger.  The red and orange beads are Kopal from Africa.  This is a type of amber that is old, but not as old as true amber. Other beads are vintage Murano glass and ebony and silver.

Handmade Designer Necklace - Ashanti Beads from Ghana, West Africa

The brass beads in the necklace above are made by the Ashanti people in Ghana, West Africa. They use the lost wax method or casting to produce such finely detailed patterns in their beads.  It is a difficult and time consuming process that dates back to Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. It is a boon to those of us who make necklaces to incorporate such fine, labor intensive beads into our product.

Other beads in this necklace are blue dyed or real coral which are the small spacers, and petrified palm tree teardrops.  Comments and questions about this necklace can be directed to barbadner@gmail.com

African Trade Beads from the Tucson Bead Show

I just returned from the Tucson Bead Show, which is enormous, exhausting and exhilarating to say the least!  There are buildings upon buildings, booths upon booths, and tables piled high with beads, precious stones, pearls and more. Before I traveled to Tucson, I spent a lot of time on line figuring out what vendors might interest me and where they were located.  Still, I only made it to one building. The first day I found little that interested me.

The second day I found the needle in the haystack!  Five years ago I met an African bead trader.  He carried many one of a kind antique beads that were from all over Africa.  Somehow, I lost contact with him and had no idea how to find him.  I walked into a tent behind the large show and saw a huge table piled with African beads..  It was such a fabulous collection and behind the table was my friend, Abubakar!  Better yet, he remembered my name. 

I bought the beads shown above.  The large blue and turquoise glass beads were made in Holland at least 100 yrs old.  They are African trade beads from Ethiopia.

I also bought the milky wedgewood blue strand of beads. These also are at least 100 years old. They were made in Mali and are called Dogon

Both necklaces are expensive. For the same amount of money I could have purchased fine semi precious stone beads.  People understand the cost of fine quality semi precious stones, but it is a little difficult to explain the cost of these rare, crude beautiful blue beads. What appeals to me is the history of the beads, their rarity and uniqueness.  You can always buy another turquoise, but it is hard to find 100 year old beads.