| Original Message: Made in the last twenty years or so. |
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Florence,
These beads look modern to me, modern being in the last 30 years. There was a company in the Philippines that was producing some very fine mosaic/intarsia work in sterling silver some years ago, I’m guessing it was 20. The majority of their product was made to look “Southwest” they somewhat flooded the market for a short while until new laws were proposed to prosecute people selling this type of jewelry as American Indian made. If I remember correctly they even had the audacity of stamping some of the work with the stamp “ZUNI” Looking at your close up I can see some gaps between stones, if I were you I would look very closely as these gaps with a 10X loupe, I expect you will see a clear adhesive which is likely super glue or epoxy. If you really want to know get a pin red hot and barley touch the gap, if it is super glue or epoxy the pin will melt it a bit and it will give off a distinct plastic odor. Regarding the stone used, it looks like block (man made) to me as the color is far too consistent to be natural. The block used (yes they made all of these) Turquoise, Malachite, Lapis, Sugilite, red and orange coral. Let us know if you do the pin test and what the results are. All my best ............ Danny P.S. They did not have Sugilite on the market until 1980 All rights reserved by Bead Collector Network and its users |
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