Swarovski Beads in Opaque Colors:A Rare Find
For years and years, while we’d comb for beads, we’d come across loads, and I mean LOADS of opaque colored glass beads. It was kind of like a treasure hunt when someone had beaten you to the treasure. Or like on the Charlie Brown “Great Pumpkin” Halloween special: all the kids are lined up to get tricks and treats dropped into their bag and as the candies are doled out down the line you see yummy treats. But when you get to Charlie Brown they plop in what looks like a piece of coal and he says “I got a rock.” Anyway, it was same sort of let down. Opaque beads, especially opaque white, were passe’. Just non-desirable. We’d leave them behind. Our vendors at the joblot warehouses would send us offers “1940’s Opaque white glass beads for $5 a LB!!!!” and we’d say “no thanks.”
It’s funny how everything, even in the bead world, goes in very cyclic trends. Those opaque white beads that for so many years we passed over were really a hot ticket in the era of Lucille Ball. Remember her crisp strand of opaque white beads that were as essential to her as her apron? She’d wear her fire-engine red lipstick and her understated beady elegance in each and every crazy situation that she & Ethel got themselves involved in. In fact as an aside, Miriam Haskell adorned Ms. Lucy episode by episode and she used many an opaque bead to do so. During my 15 years in the business we’ve been waiting and waiting for these opaque beads to come back in vogue. And guess what… they have! Actually this article is a couple of years too late. These beads really came back in style a year or two back, but they’re still going strong. They’ve become just an every-day part of our bead palette. Where before, we’d only be drawn to a transparent sapphire with loads of sparkle, we now swoon for a true navy blue. That brings us to the mac-Daddy of the opaque bead keepers: the Swarovski opaque crystal. With their 30% lead
content and highly glistening facets, Swarovski did these opaque beads better than anyone else. Dense, rich, non-transparent tones take on a whole different light when they’re machine cut. They reflect and refract the light all around them. They don’t change the color of the bead as you’ll find in many transparent beads or chatoant colors. But they make that one true color just gleam to its fullest potential. And speaking of these Swarovski opaque colors: have you ever seen them? You’re probably thinking to yourself… “Ok, what is she talking about
?” Because they are rare! Even though I turned my nose up at them for years, some others evidently did not, because I don’t find them very often anymore. We were fortunate to buy out a job lot (ie job lot = designer’s overstock or closeout) several years back and at a really good price. The lot included many Article 5110’s and 5105’s (the vintage flower bead and emerald cut crystals) in loads of opaque colors. In fact, I can remember thinking to myself at the time (it was probably 1998), “These are SO UGLY, but the price is right…” It’s so funny how that works. Now I think they’re some of the rarest treasures we possess at BeadinPath.com & I happen to have in my own private jewelry stash a necklace I made with the darling little green flower beads. Let’s spotlight the colors which is much easier to do here than in my never ended glass bead finish glossary (see the last blog). There is Opaque Green which is a yummy
milky almost Kelly green with a marbleized opacity. This is not to be confused with Swarovski’s Apple Green, a much darker and denser opaque green. Unfortunately we don’t have any stock in this color right now. But keep looking wherever you can and when you find it, or any of these colors, hoard it. It’s worth it. And you never know what we’ll come across. And then we have the Opaque Rose which is a delicate and almost ‘antique’ pink. Mixed with Opaque Green, you would make a real preppy statement or if you’re in “Old Florida” you’ll fit right in mixing these two colors on a simple bracelet. We also have Ivory which is the most elegant color for bridal jewelry you’ll find. It seems Swarovski has tried to come up with that hot bridal tone in recent years with the introduction of White Opal, White Opal Sky Blue, and White Alabaster. But they forgot about one of their old classics and should seriously consider bringing it back. These beads evoke rich tones of a royal wedding, a color for the most elegant brides (OK, I wore regular old white at my wedding too). 
There are other colors that I once had and still yearn for. There was Opaque Red (Dara: do you still have that package of 14mm 199’s you found in our back room a couple of years ago? I want them back!) And there is Navy Blue. I’ve only ever had these in 8mm 5000’s which seems so unexciting. But these were SO beautiful in a nautical sort of way. I want some. So if you have a stash of opaque beads and you’re still not into them: hold onto them. They’re truly beautiful and their time will come in your mind if they have not yet. Trends come and go, but color sings no matter what year it is.
Last Updated ( Monday, 12 November 2007 )
Where Did you Get those Lucite Beads?
Plastics’ to describe where our beads had been made. I kept thinking “What is she talking about?” but I didn’t say anything because I was afraid that maybe she’d misheard something that I said or maybe I’d misheard her. After all: the company we purchased the beads from was called Plastic Development in Warwick, Rhode Island. And Norm, the man who sold them to me had worked for that company for the last 45 years and knew his stuff. He told us all about making the beads himself back in the 70’s and 80’s. So for the first couple of conversations I didn’t say anything to Danielle. Finally, when I KNEW that I had heard her say very clearly “…and the beads that came from Best Plastics in Providence…” I interrupted. “What a sec, WHAT are you talking about? You keep dropping this name and I thought I was hearing things. I’ve never heard this name before. As far as I know, these Lucite beads were made by Plastic Development in Warwick, not Providence.” 
Fast forward a few more weeks. I was at one of our favorite job lot warehouses where I had not been for over 2 years! And evidently I’ve missed out in the last 2 years too because we didn’t find a whole lot. Between being pregnant and having a newborn, it’s hard to travel a few hours each way, dig through dirty boxes that are 15 feet in the air, etc etc to do your buying. So we’ve been doing a lot of buying via our manufacturers overseas lately, because I can simply send an email from home and viola! Beads! Anyway, I was talking to Anthony who has been in business in the Rhode Island area for many, many years and his business was handed down to him from his Father-In-Law so he knows the industry. I mentioned Best Plastics and asked him if he’d heard of it. He said “Yeah, that’s that warehouse you bought out!” I nearly fell on the floor. I said “But that company was called Plastic Development…” And now you’re about to hear a thing of fables… bead myths from years past. 
Earrings.” No matter what part of the world you’re in, when you see these, they’re probably made by Plastic Development in Rhode Island. Anyway, when they decided to shift their focus, they moved their company from a warehouse in Providence to a warehouse in Warwick and you guessed it, changed their name to Plastic Development. Anthony said “you know, they offered me that lot of beads and I just had too much plastic.” We purchased over 40,000 lbs so I can only imagine how many thousands of pounds they had offered him. 
Want to know where our vintage Lucite beads all came from? 
We were approached 2 years ago in the early Summer by the manager of a plastics company in Rhode Island via. email. (You’ve got to love that world-wide-web). They did a search for vintage Lucite & saw on www.BeadinPath.com that we stocked and LOVED vintage Lucite beads. They were looking for a buyer to come and clean out a couple of rooms in their very large warehouse. We get approached all the time by exporters, manufacturers or companies that are liquidating jewelry components. Yet this contact really intrigued us. You see this company had not manufactured beads or jewelry components since the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. They simply had a 10,000 + square foot room stocked floor to ceiling with these pesky beads and hoops and cabochons that were just in their way. 
My mother Jan & I decided it would be worth a treck down I-95 South to at least check this stock out. And if it was a wash, we’d head on over to Providence Place & do some shopping (they have an H&M and a Restoration Hardware there!). Well we never made it to the mall! When we met with the manager of the company we learned more about vintage Lucite than we had ever known before. He had worked at the same company for over 30 years and was there when they had actually made these great beads & parts. They had been commissioned by well-known companies such as Avon, Coro, and Trifari to custom-create colors and shapes for their seasonal lines of jewelry. The quality of these ‘plastic’ beads was just unmatched. (Yes, I too used to be a ‘plastic-bead-snob’!) He explained to us a little about the process where the beads are actually made in a relief process or ‘carved’ from a rod or cane of Lucite. They were not press-molded like many plastics that show seams and are lighter-weight. So, when they had overstock, slightly off-color beads from the special order, or simply orders that were not picked up, they stashed them in ‘the bead room’. 
A week or so later, Jen our store manager came to me and told me that her Uncle was a licensed trucker and could drive a big old, not sure what they’re technically called, ‘semi’ type truck. And her dynamo of a mother Sue, who also worked for us was inspired to ride down there with him and get the semi loaded up if we could get down there in the days before & get the rest of the warehouse packed up. We were so overwhelmed by the first trip that (and I can’t even believe this now) we had been contemplating just leaving the rest of the stock down there and having a rubbish company come & remove it. It was costly to move beads! So with Sue’s encouragement, we made another trip down to RI and packed & boxed & stacked our little hearts out once again. Sue & her brother drove the ‘semi’ down a day later & filled it from front to back!