Sorry I haven't been around for a while (things have been so busy here I even missed the Santa swap this year! Sigh!), but this reminds me of two that the Bead Society of GB located in Braintree Museum back in the Summer 1996 in their collections which had been put together in the late 19th century by a lady called Louisa Lowe who was married to an army officer and who collected beads from the British colonies her husband travelled to.

Robert Liu (who was speaking at our AGM at the Museum) took a photo of them and we published them in black and white in journal 35 (September 1996). Enough to say that they are not a recently produced thing and Robert said they were quite rare finds.

Carole