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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;tie.dye.cat, post: 291732, member: 152&quot;]Are you familiar with bogwood?&nbsp; It develops after a piece of wood (pine, yew or oak) has laid in a bog/marsh for many years, so it&#039;s a natural substance, not something manmade.&nbsp; It was popular for jewelry in the mid 1800&#039;s, I believe...maybe a bit later than that.</p><p><br /></p><p>Because these beads are black, the original source would have been oak.&nbsp; Pine &amp; yew turn different colors after stewing in the quagmire of a bog for a period of time.</p><p><br /></p><p>The beads feel just like wood - fairly lightweight, not cold to the touch like many other materials used in that era.&nbsp; It&#039;s also has a matte finish like you would expect to see in untreated wood.&nbsp; Looking at them under a loupe I can see the grain that you would see on a tree.</p><p><br /></p><p>I came to the conclusion that they were likely bogwood through process of elimination mainly (at least at first until I started looking at other bogwood and seeing the similarities).&nbsp; They don&#039;t fit the description of other materials of the day such as jet or gutta percha.</p><p><br /></p><p>Given the fact that it develops only under certain conditions and over a lengthy period of time, it&#039;s not the most abundant resource for jewelry making.&nbsp; There is definitely a market for bogwood jewelry and beads.&nbsp; But these beads are quite bland looking to me, so I don&#039;t know how much they might fetch.&nbsp; Then again, someone took the time to string them with handblown glass beads, so maybe it was quite special to them at the time.</p><p><br /></p><p>Sorry that was so long.&nbsp; I hope I answered your question, as I wasn&#039;t 100% sure what you were asking.</p><p><br /></p><p>BTW, here is a site I used when trying to figure out what it was....</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://jewelrynerd.org/blog/what-are-gutta-percha-bog-oak-jet-and-vulcanite-jewelry-and-how-do-i-identify-them" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://jewelrynerd.org/blog/what-are-gutta-percha-bog-oak-jet-and-vulcanite-jewelry-and-how-do-i-identify-them" rel="nofollow">http://jewelrynerd.org/blog/what-are-gutta-percha-bog-oak-jet-and-vulcanite-jewelry-and-how-do-i-identify-them</a>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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