9mm Coral Antique Bead Pendant (9.5mm round to be exact), the largest in a small handful of loose English Victorian Coral beads sourced recently from an Antiques dealer in Bath Somerset, lovely colour, quite a deep orange-red.
In the last few decades of the 1800s every English lady of means possessed at least one Coral bead necklace. The source of this Coral gemstone is the Mediterranean Sea, brought to the surface in branch form, as it has been for thousands of years, from the waters off the coast of Sicily and Sardinia. The cutting and polishing of the gemstone was done on the Italian mainland, an industry of the coastal towns of southern Italy, mostly for the increasingly wealthy market of Victorian England, mostly in the form of graduated bead necklaces, but also cut in button shape for the creation of lovely clusters of the gemstone mounted in Gold brooches.

Gemstone Coral comes in all shades of red, from the very palest of salmon pinks to the very deepest of ox-blood red. The favourite colors of the Coral fanciers of Victorian England were the stronger salmon pinks and the deeper orange-reds, such as in the above 9mm Coral Antique bead.

Note: the above Coral pendant is created in Sydney in 18ct Gold and 20ct Gold: the pretty cappings at each end of the bead of 20ct Gold, and the neatly crafted wire work fashioned in 18ct Gold.