"Lace beads" are lovely delicate blown glass beads made in Italy over a hundred years ago. How did they survive? I don't know but I'm grateful to have a few in my collection at Oasis.

This bracelet features "eye" beads, "pineapple" or "dun duns" collected in Mali, "feather" bead, "watermelon" bead and a few others--all made in Italy and traded to Africa over the past few hundred years.

The beads on the far left, snall chevrons, are made currently in India in the same way they have been made in Italy for over a hundred years. The other photo is of very old "good beads", as they are called by the African traders, and were made in Italy. Some are "King's" beads, some "skunk" beads and the large blue bead is a "nueva cadez".