Old Native-cut Corals: the five old Coral beads in above bracelet are all gem-quality natural orange in colour, hand-cut in Sth India in the early 1900s. They were never high grade, all showing obvious damage from the parasites of the seas around southern Sicily, their origin, but all completely real, all genuine gem-quality Coral.
Gemstone Coral has long been much appreciated, much valued in Sth India. British traders took it from its Mediterranean source to India from the 1700s on, in branch form and in all sorts of qualities and in all the pale pink to deep red colour variations of the gemstone. There was a ready market in Sth India for all the varieties of gemstone Coral.
Note: the images turned out a little darker than they should be, so the Corals are definitely not as dark a hue as shown.