Crystal Beads

By  Sandra Paluzzi
 The Bead Peddler®

Crystal is glass which contains a certain amount of lead.  To be called leaded crystal, British standards state the bead should contain 10 to 24% lead.  To be called fully leaded, these same standards state the bead must contain at least 24%.

Leaded glass was first made in the late 1600s.  The shape  and number of facets are crucial to giving crystal its brilliance.  At first all of the cutting and faceting was done by hand.  Then Daniel Swarovski patented a crystal cutting machine in 1892 and started manufacturing Swarovski crystal in 1895.  To this day, Swarovski crystal, made in Austria, is the world leader in both quantity and quality of crystal beads.  Swarovski is well known for it's variety of cuts and  colors.  Their color palette is unparalleled and they even produce color change beads.    Swarovski is also well known for the sparkle in it's beads caused by the high lead count of at least 30%.

Swarovski beads are in such demand that the factory cannot meet its requirements and certain colors or shapes will sometimes universally be out of stock.  At this time Swarovski is not taking on new distributors for their beads.  Furthermore, Swarovski beads are very expensive with a basic 6mm round costing approximately .20 to .25 a bead.  These two factors leave room for competition.

In recent years the Chinese have jumped into the market.  Due to the fact that the Chinese cost about half as much as the Swarovski, they are good sellers.  However, when the two types of crystals are laid side by side, the excellence of the Swarovski will be obvious.  The difference in quality is due to both the lead content and the cutting of the bead.  It is important to note here that neither the Americans nor the Chinese have guidelines for classifying crystal.  The Americans typically use the English guidelines, but the Chinese do not. Most American vendors are at the mercy of the Chinese to be honest about the percentage of lead in a crystal beads.  The Chinese are not known for being completely accurate in this regard.

One final note - it is widely believed that the Czech also produce a crystal bead this is not true.  As we previously stated in our article on Czech fire polish beads, the Czech do not use lead in creating their facetted beads. 

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