Featured Old Asian Stone, Glass, Bronze or Brass Bead Necklace

This is another old necklace I got from the thrift store a few years ago, It measures about 18" in length and has a few different types of beads on it which are either Brass or Bronze, stone and or glass. I think it's asian but I'm not sure.

Does anyone know where and when (time period) this necklace may have been made. Also, are the green or turquoise beads composite, stone, glass or a combination. The green or turquoise color stones I thought might be turquoise, while the very light or almost white milky beads might be glass. Thanks in advance for any information.

 

The "barrel" fastener/clasp makes it especially appealing to me.

 

The green stones look like aventurine,nothing on the white beads to tell anything.The brass beads are bells.

 

Very nice necklace, Thriftster. I would have bought it too.
The green stones look like amazonite to me, and I agree, the whitish beads are glass.
The random-looking geometric design on the big copper or brass beads looks very Indonesian. Indonesian beads have been traded throughout Asia and the Pacific for thousands of years, so even if they are Indonesian, the necklace could have been made somewhere else in Asia.

I think it was re-strung at some stage, maybe re-assembled from several older necklaces, and the silvertone barrel clasp was added. The result is very pretty, although I would change the clasp to a brass one.

 

Could it be an older Chinese necklace? Those brass beads are really gorgeous. I would have bought this in a heartbeat. Not the type of necklace you see every day.

Love it.

 

I must say Chinese also entered my mind. It could also be from a number of countries in Southeast Asia. The geometric pattern on the brass or copper beads looks very Javanese to me.

 

Thanks everyone for the replies. Hollyblue, aventurine, I never thought about that, thanks.

Any Jewelry, when I was looking at the metal beads I did see areas where it suggested they may be copper and not brass or bronze. I've never heard of the term Javanese before, but then again I have not heard a lot of other things.

The milk color beads have more of a greenish hue to them as seen in the second image (the bright lights used to take the images made them look more milky white).

I searched around for beads like the metal ones and have not been able to find any although I think I have seen them somewhere in preivous searches awhile ago while looking for other things. I'm wondering how old they are. Can anyone suggest a time period for the metal beads? Thanks in advance for any information.

 

@Thrifster

You just need to figure out who turns brass bells into beads.

 

The barrel clasp looks brass-like in color, maybe just my monitor. Not impossible this was always strung like this.

I usually associate that type of barrel clasp with an older necklace (like 1920s or 30s). They still make barrel clasps today, but this clasp just looks older to my eye.

The metal beads are really quite unique. I have been buying beads on and off for a couple of decades and I don't remember seeing anything quite like them. The construction might be a clue. I think they are fabulous.

Also the white/greenish beads are not perfectly round, no two the same. Doesn't necessarily mean older, but not some evenly manufactured bead in any case.

I would continue to research this piece.

 

Thanks Lucille.b for your analysis, I appreciate it along with all the other replies. The barrel clasp I think is actually is a white metal plated on a brass base metal. I'm not sure what the white metal content is. The barrel clasp is not magnetic. I've included a few more *close up* images of just the clasp and a few more images of the beads. If you click on the images most of them will enlarge for a larger or close up view for more detail although I'm sure you already know this but some others may not.

 

The clasp is pure 1930s. The white beads look it too, from the way they're made; they may light up like beacons under black light, especially if they're custard glass. It glows green. That said, when the necklace was made is anyone's guess because those foil lined seed beads aren't as old. This may have been strung up out of old components from multiple sources or a restring after the original cotton gave up the ghost. Beyond that...dunno.

 

From Java, an island in Indonesia. A lot of trade beads were made on Java.
I was thinking of those geometric designs interspersed with more floral designs, that is seen a lot on Javanese metalwork:

 

@Any Jewelry

I was wondering what the beads were made of,thanks for the photos.The beads were made from scraps/leftovers of brass bowls,containers,etc.

 

Those bowls etc. are pretty thick-walled, I have several and I could easily use them as lethal weapons. It would be very difficult to fashion beads out of scraps.
I think the beads were made as beads to start with, but in the same style as other Javanese brass and copperwork.

 

Thanks evelyb30 for the info on the necklace clasp and beads. I put the beads under a black light and they did not glow at all. Any Jewelry, thanks for the images. The patterns on the brass have a resemblance to the ones on the beads. I think the beads probably had the patterns made in the metal first to be used as beads since the metal is failry thin.

 

@Thrifster

You didn't see that the brass beads were made as bells?

 

Hollyblue, thanks, I see what you are saying and I see a resemblance to a bell constrution. I also did see some other beads online that were in bell shapes. These beads are round and there are 6 cuts on each of the metal beads that go to the center area of the bell. They seem have been formed over a ball on the top half and then wraped down to form a ball all after the top section ball or whatever was used was removed. Perhaps a similar method used to make the bell beads I saw. I'm including some more images below of the beads, also one image while under a black light (the beads are above the ruler).

 

It's definitely a "no" on custard glass when the ruler glows more than the beads do!