Trade Beads Postem If You Gotem

[monsterrack]

I see folks asking about trade beads and thought why not show them some. This is a few of different types that I have been blessed with.View attachment 882421View attachment 882423View attachment 882429

 

[GatorBoy]

Love the noticeable age on those.
Nice beads!

 

[centfladigger]

nice chevrons you found, chevrons can be dated by the layers in them, the more layers the older they are 6 or 7 layers go back to the early16th century. Some of the same Spanish beads are found in Spanish colonies in the Caribbean and Fl

 

[unclemac]

No idea what your talking about....the Miwok,the Paiute,Washoe,Shoshone,were never moved or driven anywhere.........

Was just thinking of a cliff where there are thousands of seed beads in the Bob Marshall(Blackfoot Territory(nobody pushed,moved or told them anywhere ever!!!)In there mind they are like Your Seminole....they are still at war with the Whites

I was married to a Blackfeet several decades ago....and boy let me tell you...they didn't much care for other indians neither....ESPECIALLY the Sioux. and don't you call them "Blackfoot" neither...them's fighting words to some. ...come to think of it they didn't much care for white folks to boot....the only way I was safe in the local watering hole was with one of her cousins. She only stabbed me once, so I felt pretty lucky on that account....

 

[joshuaream]

Here is a better picture of some of the beads. I sent them to a couple of different bead experts as the university couldn't identify them. The shell beads were local Taino/Carib native beads found with them.

 

[unclemac]

play around with the term "faience beads" on google and you should see something similar...

 

[joshuaream]

play around with the term "faience beads" on google and you should see something similar...

Not to be short, but they aren't african beads.

Google Nueva Cadiz, and you'll see a Spanish city in the Caribbean. The first pearl camps around Nueva Cadiz started around 1502, permanent city with priest and church with a bell by 1516. The blue one is a broken Nueva Cadiz bead with gold leaf (and early one, not the Peruvian twisties from the 1600's.) I dug these in a pre-columbian shell midden in St. Lucia about 200 miles away from Nueva Cadiz.

I've done some extensive research on these beads, and shared them with different experts. Columbus sailed by in 1498 and might have done some trading for pearls. Alonso de Ojeda traded with Caribes from Grenada which is nearby. Juan de la Cosa (navegator for Columbus) landed here in 1499. The French got here in 1502. The Spanish officially discovered the island later in 1502. A couple of additional visits happened between after 1503 (french, dutch, and a couple of pirates), but then the island was pretty much ignored until 1605.

They were examined by John Picard, a trade bead expert, he hadn't seen several of the beads and thought they were produced for personal use vs mass trade. The early Nueva Cadiz blues are easy to identify. And Gianfranco Pozzebon, an archaeologist with the University of Treviso (Veneto, Italy) who is an expert on Murano glass production during the 1300's to 1600's. (I went to grad school in a little town outside Venice Italy and got to know him.) Gianfranco thought the smaller chevrons dated around 1480, or pre-Columbus, and they were probably personal property that a sailor brought from home to trade for pearls. The larger bead dates right to 1500, and was probably made for trade. By 1515, the source of the pearls was in full production, and they started traded lesser beads for gold and large pearls that were traded into the islands.

The Caribe that collected these probably trade over a period of time to get so many, they might not have all come from a single trade.

 

[larson1951]

here is a frame i kinda forgot about
it was at my shop i shoulda tracked it down sooner
anyway this stuff is all from my mandan site
some of the could have been from lewis and clark as they were at this site when they came up the river

 

[joshuaream]

Larson1951,

Those are great pieces. I'd bet those could could be traced, Lewis & Clark kept a really good inventory of what they took, traded and where. They also carried pretty specific chinese made beads that were weighed out so many per pennyweight.

What I found when reseaching my bead finds was that to the right person the difference between one bead and another is like arrowhead types to us. The differences are obvious if you have years of experience (which I don't), and all the same if you don't have the experience.

Joshua

 

[unclemac]

actually there is very little to go with Lewis and Clark beads beyond color and poundage. Lots of beads called "Lewis and Clark" are only conjecture. I have a few beads that match the ones found at Ft. Clatsop, but even that is not fer-sure as the fort was "given" to a Chinook band after they left and used until it rotted away.

 

[unclemac]

Not to be short, but they aren't african beads.


...but they (some at least) are millefiori, so I am not sure what they are confused about.

 

[GatorBoy]

I'm thinking that they are the original type Mosaic beads... not the reinvented "Millefiori" of the nineteenth century.

 

[larson1951]

here is a frame i kinda forgot about
it was at my shop i shoulda tracked it down sooner
anyway this stuff is all from my mandan site
some of the could have been from lewis and clark as they were at this site when they came up the river

View attachment 886439

Larson1951,

Those are great pieces. I'd bet those could could be traced, Lewis & Clark kept a really good inventory of what they took, traded and where. They also carried pretty specific chinese made beads that were weighed out so many per pennyweight.

What I found when reseaching my bead finds was that to the right person the difference between one bead and another is like arrowhead types to us. The differences are obvious if you have years of experience (which I don't), and all the same if you don't have the experience.

Joshua

actually there is very little to go with Lewis and Clark beads beyond color and poundage. Lots of beads called "Lewis and Clark" are only conjecture. I have a few beads that match the ones found at Ft. Clatsop, but even that is not fer-sure as the fort was "given" to a Chinook band after they left and used until it rotted away.

hey hey thanks
just to say i said 'could have been'......but i do know that lewis and clark were at the site i care for

gotta say that this turned out to be interesting
larson1951

 

[unclemac]

I know that the Chinook favoried the blue beads beyond others..especially for some reason lighter blue, not the Russian Blues you might expect....how about you guys?.... any preference in your areas?

 

[GatorBoy]

I see so many different colors.. that it makes me like the pitch black one that I found the best.
Probably mostly because I found it..LOL.

 

[unclemac]

yeah, the one you find is better than the solid gold one you bought.

 

[old digger]

I was told that the beads with the white centers as in the above photo were made by the French. Is this correct?

In the mid 1800's, the Cornaline d'Aleppo beads (Also called Venetian Trade beads) became known as The Hudson Bay Bead. Since the French did a lot of trading of beads with the Indians, that is where the terminology came from.

 

[larson1951]

I know that the Chinook favoried the blue beads beyond others..especially for some reason lighter blue, not the Russian Blues you might expect....how about you guys?.... any preference in your areas?

i don't know?

 

[Sheperdess]

I finally am getting to this.
The first collection of beads & etc. are from the hill here by the house with the graves on it.
The second bunch are from Montana and were around a rock with carvings on it.
The 3rd batch I acquired when I worked in a jewelry store & someone came in with a bunch of these and I probably bought them. I don't even remember for sure. The note I have with them says they are glass trade beads made from early glass blowers. They were found in Africa and are anywhere from 50 to 100 years old (that was 40 years age). These types of beads were made in Vienna.
The 4th container I found (probably sitting on my Mother's lap and she pointing them out to me in the sifting screen) near Pierre, S.D. when I was a little girl.
Thanks for looking.

 

[old digger]

View attachment 887014

I finally am getting to this.
The first collection of beads & etc. are from the hill here by the house with the graves on it.
The second bunch are from Montana and were around a rock with carvings on it.
The 3rd batch I acquired when I worked in a jewelry store & someone came in with a bunch of these and I probably bought them. I don't even remember for sure. The note I have with them says they are glass trade beads made from early glass blowers. They were found in Africa and are anywhere from 50 to 100 years old (that was 40 years age). These types of beads were made in Vienna.
The 4th container I found (probably sitting on my Mother's lap and she pointing them out to me in the sifting screen) near Pierre, S.D. when I was a little girl.
Thanks for looking.

Those are some mighty fine examples there!

 

[Sheperdess]

So I have a question.
The little beads I found here on the hill are much smaller than the little ones I found in Montana.
Tell me the reason for this please.