As I spend a lot of my time trying to identify vintage beads for my own creations, I thought I’d share some of my knowledge on a blog post ☺️ You can see a lot of examples of the below in my product listings, so I thought it’d be cool to detail them a bit more!
Types of vintage beads by material
Glass
The basic ingredient of glass is silica, or small crystals of quartz sand. To form glass, silica is mixed with soda or potash and lime. Soda (a material from burnt seaweed) and potash (a material from wood ash) alter the melting point of silica, while lime is used to strengthen the material. When melted, glass can be moulded into different shapes, and hardens once it cools. It can be made into different colours depending on what materials it’s mixed with. Glass beads have been around for thousands of years, apparently they invented by the Egyptians over 3500 years ago!
Plastic
Plastic is a blanket term applied to a group of synthetic chemical products that can be molded, carved, laminated or pressed into many shapes, sizes and designs. The first types were used to immitate naturally occuring materials like tortoise, horn, mother-of-pearl, marble, amber, etc.
“Early plastic” jewellery, particularly from the art deco period (1925-1940), is highly collectible today. Back then, plastic jewellery was seen as a new art form in itself, not as reproductions of earlier/fancier jewellery. Plastic started being used by fashion designers in the twenties and thirties, and “false” jewellery (costume jewellery) became acceptable even in higher social circles. From 1940, plastic became widely popular as WWII led to a shortage of metals. I’ve outlined some of the types of early plastics used in jewellery below:
Celluloid
A type of early plastic, made with cellulose, which is found in green plants. It was trademarked in 1868 in the US, and was initially used in the production of billiard balls. For jewellery, celluloid was commonly used to immitate ivory, bone, or tortoiseshell. As it was highly flammable, other plastics replaced it throughout the years - being highly flammable isn’t such a problem with jewellery (pretty much all common clothing fabrics are), but plastics were used in other industries where catching on fire easily and conducting electricity weren’t desirable. For example, one of celluloid’s uses was to make photographic film, which is why we always see film catch fire in old-timey movies like Inglourious Basterds!
Galalith
Another type of early plastic, Galalith was patented in 1898 in Germany. It was fast and inexpensive to produce, and could be cut, drilled, embossed and dyed in any way without difficulty. It’s made from casein, found in milk! This also explains why it stopped being produce in the 1940s, as milk couldn’t be wasted during WWII.
Bakelite
Trademarked in 1909 in Belgium, Bakelite was an innovative form of plastic (the first one made completely synthetically!), and was a better alternative to celluloid and other previous plastics, which as you now know were highly flammable and conducted electricity. Bakelite is also more durable and has a sleeker finish than celluloid, so it was highly favoured for jewellery. It stopped being produced in the 1950s in favour of cheaper alternatives, which is why it’s so expensive today.
Lucite
Lucite was trademarked in the US in 1937 and was cheaper to make than bakelite and galalith and more stable than celluloid, so from the 1940s on it became the plastic used in jewellery. Lucite is originally translucent (it was invented to be used by the military for windshields), but it can be dyed many colours and made completely opaque.
Porcelain
Porcelain is a kind of ceramic, which is made of minerals fired at very high temperatures. Porcelain can be moulded in room temperature and only hardens when fired, whereas glass can only be moulded when melted. Porcelain beads were very popular in the 19th and 20th century in France, as a machine was invented that could make pressed porcelain beads quickly and in bigger quantities.
Types of vintage beads by detailing or finish
Intaglio
When the material is cut into to form a pattern or design. Cameos are an example of intaglios, where the material is carved to look like a portrait in profile.
Millefiori Glass
Meaning thousands of flowers in old Italian, these are special glass beads in which the glassblower creates flowers, animals or other intricate designs. They are also called Murano beads, as this is the island near Venice where these are tradutionally manufactured.
End-of-day Glass beads or Crumb beads
A simple method of decorating glass beads is to roll the softened bead sover multicoloured small glass pieces. The name end-of-day bead, or end of the day bead comes from a romanticized belief that these were assembled from scrap glass left on the factory floow at the end of the day, but this is probably just a standard glass decoration technique.
Dragged Trail Glass
Glass of contrasting colour is trailed onto a base in parallel lines, then a metal instrument is used to drag the trails to form a feather or a festoon pattern.
Lampwork Glass
This is when glass beads are made from preformed rods of glass, both the bead itself and any decorations on it, which are usually in other colours and form nice patterns. Wedding cake beads are a particular kind of lampwork beads where the decoration is made to look like icing on cakes ✨
Foil Glass
Foil is a thin leaf of metal used either to back stones to give them greater brilliance or inside glass beads as a decorative element.
Dragon’s Breath Glass
Glass made to simulate fire opal gemstones, this finish was very popular between the 1910s and 1930s for jewellery.
Iridescent
Glass or plastics that are given a high luster finish, similar to the the naturally occuring in pearls. Also called Aurora Borealis or AB finish, peaco*ck or carnival glass.
Moonglow
Lucite that has a moon-like shine when light hits their surface, it’s like the light is coming from the inside of the bead. Moonglow jewellery was very popular in the 1940s and 50s.
Enamel
Enamel is actually melted glass that is fired, isn’t that cool? There are a lot of different enamelling techniques, like cloisonne, where thin metal wires are gilded and bent to form cells, which are then filled with enamel. Each colour is in a separate compartment, and each compartment is separated by the thin wire.
Crackle Glass
An amazing glass-making technique where moulten glass is dipped in cold water, so the surface cracks! it was invented in 16th century Venice.
Milk Glass
Milk Glass is solid, not see-through glass that is made to look like porcelain. It started being produced in 16th century Venice because real porcelain was then imported from China at very high prices.
Uranium Glass (also known as Depression Glass, Jadite Glass, Vaseline Glass)
This is glass that has uranium added to the glass mix before being melted! Their colour can vary between yellow to green, although really it can be any colour depending on the usage of glass colorants. You’ll know you have uranium glass jewellery when it glows bright green under ultraviolet light! Obviously, it’s such a small quantity that it’d not harmful for the wearer. It stopped being used for jewellery around the 1940s when the War shortened the supply of Uranium.
Satin Glass
A glass that has the smooth appearence and shine of satin fabric ✨✨
If you’d like help dating vintage beaded necklaces, I suggest reading this blog post I wrote about it - the guide I wish I had when I first started Luneta!
Sources
“Fifty Years of Collectible Fashion Jewelry 1925-1975”, by Lilian Baker
”The Worldwide History of Beads”, by Lois Sherr Dubin
Galalith – Jewelry Milk Stone, visited on August 15 2021
French Beadmaking: An Historic Perspective Emphasizing the 19th and 20th Centuries, visited on August 15 2021
Vintage Lucite Jewellery, visited on August 15 2021
