Beads and Buttons

A few of us were talking recently about beads and buttons, and thought it would be nice to have a thread for this topic. So here it is.

I'll start off... Shiloh was interested in seeing some of the Czech glass buttons that I've sold, so I'll post a few photos. I've sold a lot of them and love these buttons, but am moving away from selling them now. The ones below were all purchased new in the last 10 years.







Please feel free to add photos of any type of beads and buttons you'd like!

 

Here are some more buttons, this time antique ones...

 

Those Czech buttons are beautiful. I'm surprised they are so recent. I like the antique ones as well.

I found these tiny red beads (about 1/8” across) at the bottom of my grandmother’s sewing basket. There are ninety of them. The sliding top box came out of my grandparents’ house, but I’m the one who put the beads in the box. I’ve seen similar beads online as Russian trade beads. These could easily be mid-19th C, but they could just as easily be early 20th.






These two beaded patches are 1 ¾” long. They came out of an aunt’s apartment. My guess is they maybe came from a pair of shoes?






These beads also came out of my aunt’s apartment. Probably trim salvaged from a lampshade. The honey-colored tubes (which are ribbed, though you can’t see it) are consistently 3cm (a bit less than 1 ¼”) long. The full strand is approximately 46” long. They are glass, and I was told probably Austrian.

 

I love those lampshade dangles. But 46" long? That must have been a really big shade!

 

It may have been on a curtain. Or even a hat. The red beads could be 40 years old or 100; sometimes it's hard to tell.

 

MOS, Are the little reddish beads cranberry-colored? I love beads in that color. They look similar to some goldish-yellow glass beads I have. The irregular size means they were hand-made rather than pressed.

You may be right about the oval medallions having been used on shoes. If 6rivets sees this thread, maybe she'd know.

Your fringe is really nice. Based on the photos, it look to me like it's in such good condition that it was probably bought new, by the yard. Beaded fringe is still sold today, and these types of beads are still made, so it can be hard to tell the age. In the 70s, I bought fringe in a few different patterns from a bead shop in NYC, and they claimed it was unused Tiffany fringe. But who knows if it really was.

I'd be cautious about claims made by eBay sellers about trade beads. I've seen beads listed that I think probably are old trade beads, but I've also seen bead listings that I'm very skeptical about.

 

Love those antique buttons, especially the Asian I still have not gotten to my buttons but mine PALE in comparison to yours.

 

I love this bead site,all about trade beads too.

http://www.museum.state.il.us/ismdepts/anthro/beads/beadgallery.html?search=

 

This is a great button ID site, the gal helped me a lot. She was a judge in button exhibits.

http://www.vintagebuttons.net/


PS
I have literally spent hours on that site drooling

 

I agree about it being difficult to tell the age of the red beads. Most beads, actually, other than very recent styles and materials. Bead-making has a very long history, and processes for some types of beads haven't changed very much.

The Chinese are copying a lot of beads, too, so it's been getting even more confusing about telling the origin of a particular bead.

Some of my favorites are Venetian hand-made lampwork glass beads, some of which are now being copied in China. These are a few examples of the real deal, circa 1995-2000...

 

Shiloh, great links! I really like the Japanese button, too. It was mixed in with a large number of other antique buttons in a tin, and unfortunately was the only Asian one.

 

Those lampwork beads are beautiful.

The items I showed came from elderly members of the family. My grandmother died in the early 1960s, when she was in her 80s. Her sewing basket was essentially undisturbed for 40 years after that. Someone must have gone through it because it was mostly empty, but my mother and sister did a lot of sewing.

The beads are cranberry colored.

My aunt did not do crafts (at least not so far as I know). She was born in 1901. The patches and the beaded trim were tucked away by themselves in a box that also contained one pink lace hanky, at the back of a bottom drawer of a dresser. I think they were keepsakes from her childhood.

46" length on the fringe isn't so big. It's the circumference of a circle with a 14" diameter.

 

Hi,
Those lampshade glass fringe is WONDERFUL!!!!! Can you tell they excite me? I just came back to this post and found Moreotherstuff sniped me on the 14" shade. Those balloon shades were like a half of a ball shape.
greg

 

I've developed a fondness for beaded whimsy's and have a few rather ratty examples but I love them.

 

Those are very clever. Didn't I hear somewhere that a lot of vintage beaded souvenirs from Niagara Falls (in particular) are NA Indian work?

 

I think the first three are Iroquoian made to sell to tourists but the last one I have no idea. It's clear glass beads and roses. There are much better examples available but I'm a sucker for ones I find when out and about. I'm actually surprised I don't have more though I'm often tempted.

 

I really like the one with the bird... it's charming.

 

Love them all!
Just found these bits yesterday in a baggie at an estate sale. They are just mostly fragments of things, but look pretty old to me. I don't know a thing about beads though. Maybe they were some type of hair pieces, because there was hair clips in the bag, I dunno.

 

I'd like you all to spare a moment's thought for all those people who spent very boring lives drilling holes in beads, especially the very tiny ones that must have been awfully hard to hold. Not to mention the drill slipping off the surface and piercing the fingers. :-(

I have calculated that if all the time spent drilling beads had been employed in construction, we would have a beadless world with 24 Great Pyramids.

 

Just in case someone is thinking about pyramids at this point, most glass beads aren't drilled.

Historically there are different methods for making glass beads but basically they can be drawn (kind of like a blown glass vessel that is stretched to the max so has a hollow center, then cut into tiny segments) or wound (literally wound around a metal rod). Of course there is more to it including molding (but I'm no expert so not the best source of info).

Other materials are sometimes drilled so maybe 12 Great Pyramids???