Bead stories 2.

It was 1996, and we, my wife Jme and I , Wildthingsbeads, were going to the Czech Republic to find beads, bead sources, factories and antique shops in the bead town, Jablonec nad Nisou. A coetomer who owned a bead shop in Washington gave us some prized lampwork beads that she owned, stating they were rare, vintage, very old, and that we should be on the look out for them. However, she said we probably wouldn’t find any, or at least not in a large enough quantity to resell in a meaningful way. She asked that we not lose her beads and give them back to her when we returned. So we left for Europe with a fairly large stash of sample beads which we needed to keep an eye out for. It was exciting. We were on the hunt. Jme had strung a temporary necklace of all her own beads that she wanted to find, not a real necklace, but a sample string of beads that she wore like a necklace for ease of carrying . Every bead factory we went to admired her “necklace” and probably thought she had no experience in assembling jewelry, because they didn’t match in shape, style or color. But then she explained, and they all understood and thought she was clever. Because language was a barrier, so by showing the factory sales person the samples we were able to find what we wanted to make.

‘Anyway, back to our lampwork mission. We were driving in the countryside from Jablonec to Zelezny Brod when we spotted a small pressing hut hidden behind a house, with 2 chimneys. It was what we knew to be on the lookout for. We stopped, parked on the side of the road and walked up the driveway towards the house. The first thing we noticed was scraps of glass and broken beads scattered on the gravel driveway, another thing we knew to look for. We had found a cottage industry glass bead factory!. The second thing we noticed after we knocked on the door was the glass bead jewelry hanging on display in the window. They were lampwork beads, and exactly the same style as the ones the bead store owner in Washington had given us to look for. Wow, what are the chances? When the door was opened, it was an old lady who spoke no English, only Czech, but Jme held out her necklace, showed her the sample beads, and pointed to the jewelry in the window. Long story short, after much hand gestulations and dictionary reading, we found out that the beads were made by her son, who didn’t live with her, but she would put us in contact with him. We were super excited. The mother made a phone call, and the son agreed he would come to the house in the morning With beads to show us. After she hung up, Jme bought a lot of the jewelry hanging in the window, even though she would be able to purchase just the beads tomorrow From the maker. We also found out their name was Nickl.

The next morning we arrived at the house and the son and his wife were waiting for us, with bags of beads. They couldn’t speak fluent English, but some, and they had a Czech/English dictionary as well. We found out the wife was the maker of the beads, not her husband, but tradition dictated that the husband claimed credit for the manufacture. We bought a large quantity of beads from them, different colors, shapes, sizes and textures. They were newly made, not vintage at all, although the wife had been making them for many years. They were her design.

we left there, loaded down with our haul. But the story doesn’t end there. Not only did we forget to investigate what the mother and her husband made in the pressing hut behind the house, which were beads from really old vintage graphite molds. We got around to investigating years later, but we were too late. They had both retired and no longer made beads. The other thing that happened was we learnt to ship everything back home instead of transporting them over the border ourselves. We continued our journey after we were done in the Czech Republic to Austria and then Germany, but when we went through the Austrian checkpoint we were detained by the customs and border guards and accused of smuggling. They searched our car, all our suitcases and bags and boxes containing all the beads we purchased. Remember, the Czech Republic had just come out of communism under the Soviet Union’s control, and although it was now independent after the velvet revolution, was not a member of the E.U. Yet. There was still passport controls, and inspections, and suspicion. But after hours at the border, it was worked out, and we were free to go with our beads. The first thing we did was find a post office and mailed all our beads home. We still had several borders to cross, and didn’t want to this to happen again.

we sold the heck out of the Nickl beads over the years, ordered more, and we still have some in stock. Oh, and we did give the Washington bead store their sample beads back. That’s the back story of these beads.