currently listed at auction as "venetian white colored eyes", or is that you? Hopefully not. When I saw the listing yesterday I thought the description left something out, and the title could be improved. Some of us search for so called 'skunk' beads of different colors other than black or red. I know there are other words for beads with spots so it might be good to use as many as you can think of. I think the dark core deserves mention and description. blah blah... maybe I have too many opinions.

Mine are better!

I've seen these on mixed strands of fancies, always pretty beat-up, and one guy in Texas is currently using them as leather bracelet toggles - again, the beat-up versions.

Sigh. To sell or not to sell?

Remind me never to post again after having a glass of wine with lunch, it's taken me three tries now to say what I wanted to in one short post.

At any rate, here are the pix that I meant to attach to the previous post.

Lantern breads with eyes? Don't know where that name came from.

In the 70's I bought short hanks of them as new beads from Mono Jewels in NYC. I think I kept a string or 2 of them.
No way to know when Mono jewels got them. Some of their beads were pre WWII. But they also sold lots of contemporary Venetian beads.

They still show up on those mixed strands from Ethiopia with a carved bone spear head on the strand. I think the loose beads I have for sale are sorted from a mixed strand.

I knew I had at least one of these but this one does not have any of the white beads.

These are almost always really damaged. Prob. having to do with the different expansion rates of the white vs. black glass, then add to that banging around for 100 years or so, harsh temperature changes, etc....

Keep a few of your best! I have not seen any in such good condition.

Here is a original hank of five stands I have of this style bead. As you can see even these have condition issues. I usually just sell them as multi color eye beads.
Wayne

Wow! This is what makes this list so much fun, the way we collectively sleuth out bead trails.

Found 'em!

The white glass nearly completely covers the black underneath. 1920-1929?

I should've kept going one more page - this sequence shows 3 sizes from smaller to larger, with more of the black showing, and the white as more of a band around the middle.