Semi Precious Beads, Tibetan Amber. Agates are probably the most common of the Semi Precious gemstones, belonging to the “crystal” family of Chalcedony which includes gemstones appreciated since ancient times, like black Onyx, reddish-brown Carnelian, red-brown Jasper, and banded Agate such as in the above necklace where, in its formation, layers of Quartz and Chalcedony alternated. Banded Agate is basically opaque, and ranges in colour, as does the above, from pale through grey to dark brown and even black.
The usual fairly formal approach to using banded Agates, as simply a full strand of the beads, is here quite altered, with a very fine old Tribal Silver centre-bead, four old Amber beads, and six pretty little spacers of old orange-coloured Sth Indian Corals.
The old Silver centre-bead, from Odisha (formerly Orissa), West India, was made to be worn on a very thick strand of woven twine and has a large hole, posing a problem for stranding with beads all centrally holed, and its hole had to be filled with a centrally holed bead. Once all professionally stranded, the contrivance is not easy to see, being closely flanked with two wedges of old Naga Amber, but inside the fine old Silver bead is a a largish hexagonal bead of crystal Aquamarine.
Note the two old Tibetan Amber beads, one full butterscotch, one dark honey: both these Amber beads originally came from the Baltic, whereas the origin of the two honey-coloured Amber wedges, flanking the old Silver, was the Bay of Bengal.