Identifying trade and glass beads
Drawn, wound, and chevron beads that travelled the world.
Glass beads divide by making: drawn beads (cut from a pulled tube — look for parallel bubbles and snapped, often rounded ends), wound beads (glass coiled on a mandrel — swirl lines circle the hole), and moulded types. The chevron, with its star-section layers of red, white, and blue, is the most famous compound type.
European factories exported beads by the ton into African, American, and Asian trade from the 16th century; find one far from Venice and it still identifies. Earlier traditions matter too: Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon polychrome beads, Roman melon beads in turquoise frit, Islamic eye beads.
Under a loupe, note the bubble orientation (parallel to hole = drawn; circling it = wound), colours and layering, and hole wear. Measure diameter and length, and describe colour combinations exactly — bead typologies run on precisely such details.