Swarovski Beads: Rare and Vintage

We just featured some of the finest and most rare Swarovski crystals from our vintage collection. Some of these styles we have in stock pile. Others, we have very limited availability. So shop early and shop smart.

Choose from vintage Swarovski opaque rose emerald-cut drops (article 5105), vintage Swarovski opaque green emerald-cut drops (article 5105), vintage Swarovski turquoise flowers (article 5110), vintage Swarovski opaque green flowers (article 5110), and more. Opaque jewelry components are an up-and-coming trend, and lucky for us that these lovelies were were left behind by collectors for us to find.

    

Up to date...

So I've alwasy been so intimidated by this blogging thing. I always put his pressure on myself to say something so worthwhile, so profound in each and every post. I originally starting writing blogs more as informational articles on beads and beading: to share the love but also to help get traffic to our site BeadinPath.com.

Now the more I read blogs, the more I realize that I need to blog just to help me organize my thoughts. And what an opportunity to get back to my love of writing! Since it seems I never have time to put an actual pen (remember the 'vintage' kind that had ink in it - used with paper?) to paper, I am trying to revive my blog. It will be a dual purposed blog: daily ramblings of what is on my mind, but alos bead tidbits and updates on store stuff. Store stuff is what is on my mind quite often anyway so it's all the same really.

SO, on the store front: We just got in the most darling vintage Margarita crystal beads. Rare & vintage Swarovski. While we have a pretty large collection of vintage Swarovski crystals still these days, it's been awhile since I've 'stumbled upon' any "NEW" vintage crystals. Back in the day, I had to ration my buying as there was so much out there and not a super-huge market (I know, can you believe I used to see walls of 'polka dotted' Art 42 Swarovski beads in varied colors & sizes and didn't BUY THEM ALL?!). But in recent years - there's a market. And the good finds still happen, but they are fewer and far between than they used to be, that's for sure. Luckily people come to us now and that's how we 'stumble' on these treasures lately. Back to the beads...

Vintage Art 3700's and 3701's. Swarovski still makes 3700's but not in these sizes & colors. We found 16mm double coated Comet Or in 24k coating, 14mm Bermuda Blue and other lovelies. Art 3701 is a similar style to the center holed sew-on margaritas (Art. 3700), only 3701's have extra facets on their perimeter. We now have 16mm in the double coated Comet Or in this shape too. I am addicted to wearing gold anything lately, so many of these will go into the BP archives (my stash :) but we'll have them listed on our site very soon. Miss Megan just priced them out for stranders today so we'll have them back in the shop and hopefully online sometime next week.

We also just purchased a large joblot of vintage glass stones & cabochons, mostly made in West Germany, Japan and Czechoslovakia ca. 1930's and 1940's. Again 'back in the day' (and I'm really not that old...) I used to find these high end, highly leaded, lovely colored stones all over the place. I used to be able to buy some of them by the pound!!! That was some years ago though! These are 2-tone colors and other specialty pieces that are hard to find in one place. BUT we're still trying to figure out what to do with them. Such is the problem with having a 5,000 square foot bead store: a space I never thought we'd ever fill! We're already running out of room and have to decide what to do with things like this: lovely things that have a market, albeit smaller than our general bead market. Chris (dear hubby) just built new display tables and I believe this lot is beckoning for a 3rd to display them out loose. These will not get online for a while as we have many Czech glass beads and other lovelies on their way in that take priority

SO, on the daily ramblings... I'm losing my voice. I LOVE karaoke and just came from my friends house where we sang our arses off. Little Chasie (15 month old baby boy) was bouncing and singing into the microphone like the next American Idol. Her husband had borrowed a DJ-friend's set-up to DJ an event their hosting tomorrow night. So he was practicing his set-up in their basement tonight. After a glass of wine or 2, Karen & I (my best girlfriend from grade school) broke out the Cheap Trick and the Journey and sang so long we had the kids begging us to put them to bed! Maybe it wasn't because we sang too LONG... maybe we just weren't all that good! But it was fun. I used to think I could sing OK. I sang in church growing up and was always encourage to perform. But it's the kind of think that if you don't use it, you lose it. I need to practice more often because tonight... was bad. And wow, Steve Perry really could sing... you try it. Separate Ways in your shower tomorrow morning. You'll see.

OK, I have no idea if this blog is going to be something I keep up with or not. I will try... and hopefully it will be more 'on task' and less long winded going forward. And I'll post pictures once I figure out how...

Swarovski Beads in Opaque Colors: A Rare Find

Written by Heather DeSimone

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 )