Antique Beads at Wholesale Prices

Antique Beads Antique Glass Bead Antique Silver Beads Antique Venetian Beads Antique Pandora Beads These are the sample antique beads by our wholesale antique bead suppliers. If you have requirement of any types of antique beads in bulk, request a quote and receive quick response from our pre-verified suppliers. Send Your Requirement

Antique Beads

Know About Antique Beads

Bead making is an ancient art form. Antique beads are beads that have been made in the distinct past in various regions of the world and with different natural as well as man made materials. Since time immemorial, people have been using beads for making jewelery, for decoration and as an accessory to embellish their clothings. These old beads, popularly called ancient beads or antique beads, when discovered in form of antique bead jewelry or as loose antique beads are treasured by the antique beads lovers.

History of Antique Beads

Most of the cultures have used beads for personal adornment, religious purposes, as good luck talismans, and as curative agents. According to the archaeological records, people made and used beads as long as 5,000 years ago. At first, antique beads were made using natural materials including bone, shells, and stones. With the invention of glass making, antique glass beads became more popular than any other antique beads. Phoenician, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Islamic are the five categories that are used to refer to the time periods and regions that gave birth to antique beads. The Phoenician period is taken roughly from the 8th century BC to the end of the millennium. Roman period covers the last centuries of the millennium through the 5th century AD. Antique glass bead making was mostly prevalent in the Islamic world from AD 600-1400. The antique beads manufacturers from eastern and central Asia were popular world over who traded their antique beads in the western countries and other parts of the world.

Antique Beads Materials

The earliest antique beads were made mostly from natural materials that were comparatively soft and could be worked with easily because of the simple reason that the tools for making these antique beads were not too sophisticated at those time periods. The earliest materials preferred for making antique beads had interesting shapes, colors, or patterns. Many early antique beads were materials that were naturally perforated. For example mollusk shells and even amber beads. Once the technology for cutting, grinding, and drilling of materials were refined, antique beads started to be made from more harder and durable materials.

Natural Organic Materials for Antique Beads

The earliest antique beads were most likely made with organic materials such as wood, seeds, bone, ivory, horn, shell, amber, and coral. Most of these organic material antique beads have not survived the ravages of time and environment. Amber beads were traded extensively by antique beads suppliers and manufacturers in ancient times as they are traded in modern times too. Antique beads jewelery like antique beaded necklaces and pendants made of shell, horn etc. are still found and liked by the people who love to wear antique beads.

Minerals for Antique Beads

Antique beads made from softer stones evolved before those made from harder stones. The typical antique bead made from stone is roughed-out, refined through grinding or abrasion, and finished by polishing. Stone beads also required drilling to provide a perforation. Hard stones started to be used for making antique beads as early as about 7,000 BCE, but became more standard by about 3,000 BCE. Some of the mineral used for making antique beads included steatite (soapstone), serpentine, shale, calcite, limestone, marble, alabaster, jade (nephrite), garnet, various fossil materials, and most of the quartz-family minerals like rock crystal, agate and jasper among others.

Metals for Antique Beads

In the ancient times beads were also made from metals. However, as the techniques were not so developed, antique metal beads are not from very ancient periods. In those very ancient periods, the antique beads were made at the most with alloys such as bronze and brass but because they were more vulnerable to oxidation, these antique metal beads have generally been less well-preserved at archaeological sites. The antique beads made of other metals like antique silver beads are not particularly antique but are vintage beads. In the world of collectibles and antique beads wholesale market, vintage beads are those beads that are 25 or more years old. Other than the indicated metal, vintage beads are available in materials such as lucite, plastic, crystal, and glass.

Antique Glass Beads

Antique glass beads were made by combining two technologies- using a draft furnace (as for metal smelting) with the components typical of faience manufacture. The material "faience" is considered by many to be a type of "ceramic." It was, however, mankind's first artificial material, and is thought of as the ancestor of glass. Antique beads made from glass evolved much later as glass was only malleable when it was hot, and could only be manipulated with tools. The cooling of glass that let it stiffen and harden also required "annealing" that is controlled cooling in order to prevent stress fractures and breakage. As a result antique glass bead making was limited to few expert artisans only. Also the antique glass beads were generally opaque or feebly translucent and were colored to resemble desirable materials. For example, they were made violet-blue to resemble lapis lazuli, and teal-blue to look like turquoise and thus antique colored beads came into being.

Antique beads, with their rich evolving history have come to occupy a status where they are liked by art connoisseurs and antique beads suppliers equally. These antique beads satisfy the aesthetic requirement of art lovers and fetch a good business deal for antique beads exporters and manufacturers.