History, Collecting and Manufacture of Beads - Collectable Beads

To Home Page

  History, Collecting and Manufacture of Beads - Collectable Beads

MIDDLE EASTERN AND VENETIAN GLASS BEADS 8th to 20th Centuries

By Augusto Panini

(hardback) 312 pages, colour (2008) £50.00 + £9.00 p&p Discount p&p offer! - click here (Code no sp4048)

This highly colourful illustrated volume allows us to share the many years of collecting and research by the author on Middle Eastern (Eastern Mediterranean) and Venetian glass beads mostly found in West Africa. The beads date from the 8th to 20th centuries AD and are witnesses of the commercial exchanges and cultural contacts between regions over that time. The colour photographs are amazingly detailed and include single beads and strands. The book has two main sections, the first on Eastern Mediterranean/Middle Eastern beads - eye beads, mosaic eye beads, beads decorated with stripes and trails, combed/feathered beads and folded beads. The second section on Venetian beads includes eye beads, all kinds of lampworked decorated beads, millefiori and chevrons. There is also a very colourful and useful section on Venetian trade cards from various collections and museums. This is a heavy hardback filled with fabulous images for any collector, researcher or lover of beads, and should be added to any serious bead-lover's collection. (NB to save postage, you can always email us and arrange to collect a copy from any of the numertous shows and events we attend)

  History, Collecting and Manufacture of Beads - Collectable Beads

THE HISTORY OF BEADS From 30,000 BC to the Present

Lois Sherr Dubin

(paperback) 364 pages, colour ( pb 2006) £19.95 + £5.50 p&p Discount p&p offer! - click here (Code no sp4047)

A new paperback full edition of this bead collector's bible which came out over 20 years ago in 1987. A reasonably comprehensive history of beads with many thousands of examples of beads, beaded jewellery and beadwork representing 40,000 years of history and drawn from every major culture and region of the world. Also includes technical diagrams, 15 maps of bead sources and distribution patterns, a bead shape chart and a magnificent 8-page fold-out of over 2000 beads in full colour assembled as a unique timeline which places important bead types in their cultural and historical context.

 History, Collecting and Manufacture of Beads - Collectable Beads

GEMS & PRECIOUS STONES

Curzio Cipriani & Alessandro Borelli

(paperback) 384 pages, colour photos throughout (1986) £12.95 + £2.50 p&p Discount p&p offer! - click here

Simon & Schuster's Guide to Gems and Precious Stones provides both the professional and casual collector and jewellery maker with a compact, easy-to-use volume describing more than 100 varieties of minerals, many of which have been used to make beads, cabochons and jewellery stones. Aspects covered are appearance, physical properties (density, hardness, refraction) occurrence and how to judge quality and value. Additional sections describe processing of gemstones.

    History, Collecting and Manufacture of Beads - Collectable Beads
  History, Collecting and Manufacture of Beads - Glass Beads (MORE in this category)

ORNAMENTS FROM THE PAST: BEAD STUDIES AFTER BECK

(ed) I.C. Glover, H. Hughes-Brock & J Henderson

(paperback) 156 pages, col and b&w photos (2003) £19.95 + £3.00 p&p Discount p&p offer! - click here

This book on glass and semi-precious stone beads in history and archaeology is a must for archaeologists, bead collectors, jewellery historians - in fact anyone interested in different kinds of beads from around the world and through time. It is a series of eleven individual articles on glass and hard stone ornaments surviving from ancient societies and those made and worn by some traditional communities in the modern world. Earlier versions of many of the chapters were presented at the symposium "Bead STudies after Beck" organised by the Bead Study Trust and held in the McDonald Institute, University of Cambridge in April 1997. The symposium was timed to coincide with the publication of the first volume of the catalogue of the Beck Collection of beads in the University Museum of Archaeology & Ethnography, The Bead Study Trust Catalogue of the Beck Collection Part 1: Europe.

Lavishly illustrated with colour photographs, papers include ones on Horace Beck, Mycenaean beads, Scandinavian and Viking beads, Sassanian beads, Celtic bead-making sites, SE Asian etched stone beads, African powder glass beads, bead making in Ghana and Stone beads from Myanmar (including 'pumtek').

   History, Collecting and Manufacture of Beads - Collectable Beads

A BEAD TIMELINE Volume 1: Prehistory to 1200CE

James W Lankton

(paperback) 96pages,Colour photos (2003) £17.50+ £2.25 p&p Discount p&p offer! - click here

Reaching back into prehistory, Jim lankton traces beads back through time following their role in the development of technology, politics, religion, ritual writing and commerce. In this volume (one of two, the second yet to come) he provides practical information for identifuing beads and focuses primarily on organic beads, shell, ivory, coral, amber, soft stones such as turqiuoise and lapis lazuli, hard stones such as carnelian, chalcedony, rock crystal and jade, as well as faience and glass.

The book reviews the important bead developments in Mesopotamia, the eastern Mediterranean and Egypt, the Hellenistic and Roman world, early Europe, South and Southeast Asia. China, Korea and Mesoamerica, and will become a must for all collectors of beads of these areas and periods - Prehistory to Medieval (i.e. c.1200AD).

Look out for Volume 2!!

History, Collecting and Manufacture of Beads - Collectable Beads

ASIA'S MARITIME BEAD TRADE: 300BC to the Present

by Peter Francis, Jr.

(hardback) 320 pages, colour photos, B&W photos, B&W diags (2002) £38.00 + £6.75 p&p Discount p&p offer! - click here (UK) £7.00 p&p Discount p&p offer! - click here (Europe).

This fascinating study is the first detailed description of the ancient and enduring trade in beads that spans more than 2000 years and once stretcehd from the Middle East to East Asia. Peter is a respected scholar in the field of bead studies and most of the information has been gathered first hand. The archaeological data are rich, as are the historical and ethnographic. The concentration is on identifying beads through their manufacturing techniques, to trace their trade around Asia and beyond, and to understand the uses of the beads through the ages.
 
Asia's Maritime Bead Trade is profusely illustrated. In addition to 16 glossy color and 16 glossy black and white pages, drawings, maps, and tables aid the reader to follow the fascinating story.

Peter Francis was the director of the Center for Bead Research (CBR) which he founded in 1979. Sadly, Peter died in December 2002 and will be greatly missed by the bead community.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THIS BOOK

History, Collecting and Manufacture of Beads - Collectable Beads

BEADS OF THE WORLD: A Collectors Guide

by Peter Francis Jr

(paperback) 142 pages, colour photos throughout (1994) £19.95 + £4.50 p&p Discount p&p offer! - click here

Covers the identification, manufacture and uses of many of the world's collectable beads. Sections on collecting, materials etc.

History, Collecting and Manufacture of Beads - Collectable Beads

THE BEAD STUDY TRUST CATALOGUE OF THE BECK COLLECTION PART 1: EUROPE

(paperback) 160 pages, b&w illustrations, 2 colour microfiches (1997) £14.95 + £2.50 p&p Discount p&p offer! - click here

The first of the catalogues of the bead collection of Horace Beck, housed at the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. European and Mediterranean countries, of all ages and materials, as well as a paper on Horace Beck by Peter Francis, and a bibliography of Horace Beck's works on beads.