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Comments

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  Joost Daalder July 10, 2011 at 2:33pm

  These look very atttractive. It does seem to me that they have the appropriate wear, but I leave that to you, in any case. I love the patterns and the colours! Most wearable, too, and I always think that knotting is utterly sensible to keep them in place and to protect the whole necklace from falling apart! This is beautiful, I feel - truly very nice.
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  Stefany Tomalin July 10, 2011 at 5:12pm

  Giving dimensions, such as including a ruler in the photo, or telling the length of one of the prominent beads is most helpful in identification from an image.

  you may find information about these too on BCN, its not so likely they are tibetan but some genuine old ones are found in other areas around the Himalyas such as towards Myanmar, or Thailand hill tribes.

  so-called "etched cornelians" done in a similar way to tibetan "Tzi" beads are now copied in huge quantities in China, so its very important to learn what you can by your own observation, not only what vendors who want to sell them will tell you.
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  Eva Baby July 10, 2011 at 5:42pm

  They look splendid to me, the white patterns were they made artificially (sorry English is not my mother tongue - perhaps I should first find out what etched means). Anyway, they look great!

   

   

   
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  Savanna Caravan July 12, 2011 at 8:31am

  Wow, Lu this is a spectacular, incredible, almost edible piece!  Totally gorgeous! x
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  Jamey D. Allen July 12, 2011 at 2:26pm

  Unfortunately, I am reasonably certain these are new Chinese reproductions.  The Chinese began manufacturing chemically decorated ("etched") carnelian beads in 1997.  I believe I was one of the first Americans to see these beads and to bring them back to the USA.  However, the present beads are much more recent.  The larger shapes seem to combine the size/shapes of antique Tibetan pema raka (carnelian) beads, with artificial patterns derived from phum zi beads.  Phum zi are considered by Tibetans to be "foreign" or "Indian" zi, and to be inferior to the beads they admire.  I have seen a very few carnelian phum zi. But they are distinctive, and the present beads are clearly imitations.

   

  Anytime something entirely new (different) comes along, that seems to combine aspects of two unrelated types of beads together, this is a big clue that the beads in question are fakes.

   

  Jamey