Venetian Trade beads, old hand-blown glass. Countless numbers of these black-core, coloured glass beads were created on islands in the Venice Lagoon in the 1800s, for the trading and bartering that flourished between African and European traders in that period.
Naturally, some of the production of these hand-blown glass beads was of a higher quality than the bulk of it, and the above three beads definitely fall into the higher quality area, with the patterns uniform and distinctly delineated.
The Silver cappings for the above three Venetian Trade beads are handcrafted in Sydney especially for these beads, each capping individually crafted.
The eight smaller round Silver beads are London-made, bored out in Sydney to allow threading onto the Silver “rope” chain.
Note: the Silver “rope” chain is also quite interesting, very nicely made in Sterling Silver in India, and made so that one of the endings can be screwed off, allowing the removal of the beads. Nice work.