Machine Made Metal Beads

By  Sandra Paluzzi
 The Bead Peddler®

Last month we talked about Bali Beads which are handmade metal beads. Bali style beads are not the only hand made metal beads.  There are also Mexican, Native American Indian and Hill Tribes hand made metal beads to name a few.  All of these beads have seams and they all vary a little in size and decoration.  Hand made metal beads go back to at least 3000 BC.  They sprung up in various isolated cultures.

Machine made beads, on the other hand, are a relatively modern phenomena.  All seamless beads are machine made.  Also, two beads made from the same machine will be identical in shape, size and weight.  Until recently, the machine made metal beads have been the classics: the seamless rounds, the corrugated rounds and ovals for example.  They have been devoid of decoration.

However, near the end of the 20th century,  the machine made beads benefited by another modern invention- the laser.  

Lasers are used to cut designs into metal beads.  The beads sparkle and shine - they are truly the 'glitz' of the metal beads.

While I love looking at a bead that is centuries old, I also love seeing a bead which has been invented during my lifetime.

Machine made beads are made all over the world.  Perhaps the Italians are best known for the quality of their machine made metal beads. But high quality metal beads also come from the United States.  Israel and India are also players in this market.  One very interesting fact about the metal beads: machine made metal beads tend to be more expensive per gram than do hand made metal beads.  A machine made bead from India costs more than does a hand made bead also from India.  Of course, the countries producing the hand made metal beads all have low labor costs. That same cost ratio would probably not hold true of machine made beads made in the USA. versus hand made beads made in the USA.  And the more detail in a machine made bead, the more expensive it is.  Laser (or diamond) cut beads are the most expensive bead per gram weight.

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