"The resinous bodies resulting from the condensation of phenol and aldehydes...known under various trade names as Bakelite, Redmanol, Sipilite, Condensite, Amberite, Faturan, Phenoform, Nuloid, Amberdeen, etc., etc."

Quote from a paper by L.H. Baekeland and H. L. Bender, in Ind. Eng. Chem., 1925, 17 (3), pp 225Ð237. Baekeland of course is the inventor of Bakelite phenolic resins. The original patent ran out in 1927. I am going to order a copy of this paper see what else I can learn about the "timeline" of industrial phenolic resin production. But from this publication we can see that the trade name Faturan was in existence in early 1925.

I strongly suspect that the current "fascination" with Faturan beads may be on account of the rarity of beads dating to this time period of the 1920's. Beads made from the German product, Faturan, may have been very beautiful and likely found their way to the Middle East in the form of prayer strands. And like so many other beads and bead materials, once the demand starts, any number of fakes and reproductions inevitably crop up.