Hi Judy,
What you have is a beautiful antique Venetian bead, decorated with sideways laid canes, then decorated on top of those with small pieces of cane. The overall effect, to my way of thinking, is a bead that is decorated with tiny beads. I have three like this one.
These are very collectible and not very common, although they seem to have cropped up more starting with Tucson of 2013.
Paul Johnson (waneeho on the forum) has a stunning strand of these showing a wide variety of variations on the basic theme. Maybe he can re-post or else I will try to find it in the archives.
NIce find!
Beads from my collection.
and thanks for the great pictures. It was the tiny brown white and blue canes that threw me off, I've not seen them before. But now I see them in one of your beads. The more I learn, the more I understand how little I know. Fun isn't it?
People also call these longitudinally laid cane but sideways has fewer syllables.
Actually I think I should say sideways layed, not laid. Any grammarians out there?
...I've only ever had one which I've held on to for years, pictured here with two other favorites to keep it company. So way to go Judy! And Rosanna, thanks for posting the archived thread, I loved seeing these!
-Mel
The pic was of my beads. I haven't been able to locate Paul's picture, will try again tomorrow, or maybe he can chime in.
I'm a little late on this, but here are some longitudinally laid cane beads on the Sick Catalog sample card, date range 1910- 1913.