07-01-2015 10:08 PM
I was making a pair of earrings this evening and needed a red bead of some kind so I pulled out the "RED" storage box to sort through it for the right bead. Yeah, it SOUNDS organized doesn't it, yeah not. Anyway I had a baggie with two necklaces and a bracelet made of small red glass beads, all three different. As I looked at the bracelet I realized the beads weren't glass. I don't know what they are. They're not agate carnelian as there's no translucency to them. The color is a tomato red and the beads have almost a grittyness to them when I rub them against my teeth. They're not perfectly round, each is slightly different and they tend to have little depressions in them. The clasp is unusual as well; I've never seen one quite like this. DBL is printed on the back of the clasp. Of course searching by DBL brings up double everything since DBL is a common abbreviation for double. Does anybody have any thoughts on this? I came in a lot I bought years ago.
07-01-2015 10:50 PM
07-02-2015 01:16 AM
Possibly coral.
I've seen the DBL mark on gold filled items from Europe ...Germany and Holland.
07-02-2015 07:47 PM
Thanks Arlene! You sent me in the right direction and I found a page on gold marks. Apparently it stands for Double Gold Filled. I'm not sure how that works. It says gold is applied to "both" sides of the base metal? http://www.yesterdaysgems.com/goldmarks.html
I suspect the beads are coral. There are faint striations on some of the beads that remind me of an old coral piece I had years ago. I can't really think what other stone it could be for it's age and appearance, and in my looking I came across some similar vintage bracelets.