How to Find and Collect Antique and Vintage Beads

As a long time bead collector and hobbyist jewelrymaker, I have seen the bead world explode over the past ten years. Truly beautiful and innovative glass and metal beads that would once have been hard to find are now readily available to buy at huge crafts stores such as Michael's Crafts and Jo-ann's Fabrics; on eBay; at craft fairs and bead shows. Swarovski crystal beads, Czech glass beads, imported sterling silver beads, and every other kind of newly manufactured bead are also available through companies such as Fire Mountain Gems, www.firemountaingems.com and Shipwreckbeads.com among numerous others. In addition to new commercially made beads, there are, both at online sites and at craft shows, the often exquisite artisan-made glass lampwork beads, exotic and ever more imaginative polymer clay beads, gem stone beads, and ceramic beads.

Assuming that you as a bead lover have already discovered these resources, I would like to share with you another route to finding and collecting beautiful and unusual beads to add to your collection: hunting for antique and vintage beads.

Antique and vintage beads are widely findable, and at very low prices. At flea markets, garage sales and auctions, they are pretty much hiding in plain sight. The key to finding unusual and beautiful old beads is not to look at vintage necklaces for their overall appearance, which is often lacking. Instead, learn to zero in on the individual beads they contain and imagine them rearranged and combined with other beads according to your own designs.

If you orient your eye to spot the unusual, you will begin to discover all kinds of wonderful beads available for pennies. Where do you start? Unless you are partial to the casual and funky qualities of plastic beads, it is best to start by avoiding them. Those made in recent years were often made cheaply. Early plastic beads, such as those made of celluloid, lucite or bakelite can be quite attractive and collectible. Recognizing these substances, however, is a study unto itself and requires a bit or research to those that are interested. I would also recommend avoiding cheap metal beads that are highly tarnished or have worn metallic plating. However, look carefully: some tarnished beads are in fact sterling silver and may look stunning with a good cleaning.

With those categories off your bead radar, begin to look for beads that are made of glass or stone. Keep an eye open for mixed strands which combine all kinds of large and small beads-- there may be some great finds among the dross. Also, pay attention to the spacers: those are the smaller beads that serve to separate the flashier beads in the necklace. Spacers can be highly decorative and useful beads.

Among what may look like mundane or even ugly beaded necklaces, there are many exceptionally interesting old individual glass beads from the 1950s and earlier that were were made in Czechoslovakia, a centuries-old center of glass and glass bead making, as described by the website: http://www.feelbohemian.com/pages/craft-history.htm. Czech glass beads can include almost any design: look for glass beads with swirls and flecks of metallic gold or silver; for those made carnival glass: dark glass with an irridescent surface, hollow blown glass beads, and those with milliflori designs.

Other vintage beads that can often be found in garage and estate sale venues include jade colored glass, real carved stones and crystal beads of all shapes and colors.

Once you start looking carefully at the beads within old necklaces, you will begin to easily find these small affordable treasures. The next step is to snip these necklaces apart and begin to harvest and sort your beads. Sorting is one of the great pleasures of bead collecting! You may want to clean and glass beads and polished stone beads with a bit of rubbing alcohol.

You will soon find that these wonderful old beads are unlike those you can buy brand new. However, when mixed with the new, they hold endless unique design possiblities.