This glass bead, gleaming clean and new, was described as "antique Evil Eye bead from Turkey" with an asking price of P600 - a cool $14 each. There were about 100 of them, which seems unlikely for "antique" beads -

These beads were described as "not antique but old wedding beads from Mali".

By this time the owner of the kiosk had joined us and I wrote down what he told me so there would be no mistake. The conversation was relaxed, no point in being any other way.

He showed me "proof of provenance" on a page within this book, and I was surprised to see the same sort of "seams" illustrated as appeared on the beads in my hands.

Once again the beads appeared clean and unworn to me.

These are molded beads, made in Jablonec, Czech Republic. They are often called Wedding beads. The seams come from the molding proces. They do have the typical wear of these beads, and they can indeed be made in the 1920's, 1930's. They can also be newer, or a mix.

I assumed they were molded because of the joins, but appreciate your experience in this field. But where does the "Mali" bit come into it?

I'm sure others with more ethnographic knowledge can chime in, but from what I understood these beads are or were popular with the Peul aka Fulani women, who also live in Mali, would wear these on their wedding day. Apparantly they have some meaning to do with fertility.

Chevrons again, described as "definitely antiques from Murano that were brought to Manila from Muslim trader from Africa" although they seem very new to me, as I pointed out mildly.

He was asking P27550 for a strand of 13 of these large green 6-layer chevron, of varied condition. That's about $640 a strand or $49 each. Incredible. But the similar red chevron I photographed early this year in this same Market had already sold out!!!

Barbara,
Thank you for going to the trouble of sharing your experience in the Philippines.
If I were in Manila, I would look for antique gold beads. Should you get a chance,
please have a look and let us know what you learn.

Just Fred

I know where there are some exquisite gold beads of the tamborin necklaces here. I collect tamborin beads myself, but so far only silver dipped in gold (some posted here a few years back). Even those beads are not so readily available as they used to be. I saw plenty in the nineties but did not have the money! I will be going to check out where I used to find them, but not for another week or so. I will certainly photograph and report back. They are beautiful beads.