Beads

Buyers at a recent Fellows auction in Birmingham showed the strength in the market for amber.

Pearls and coloured stones remain strong – but, fuelled by interest from China (and, to a lesser, extent, the Middle East), so does amber.

BEAD-collecting tends to fall between jewellery and tribal art and is often overlooked as a collecting area in its own right.

I HAVE been asked to alert readers to the annual Beadwork and Bead Fair – and why not? There are many more arcane items which have societies devoted to them and beads obviously have staying power for the fair has been going for 15 years.