>Hidden Beads

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Interestingly, the day that President Obama was on his way to Buchenwald, Germany, I visited my local bead shop where I discovered a mass of vintage German glass beads!

I had gone to Beaucoup Beads looking for small glass leaves to use in my beaded White House painting. I thought I would probably find some Czech glass leaves, but I really didn't see any! So, I mentioned to the shop owner that I was looking for leaves. He said he had some vintage German beads hidden in the back, and came out with two boxes full of beautiful leaves in all different colours! Immediately, I could see that they are different than Czech glass beads, so I picked out the few strands that you can see in the photo above.

I mentioned that I don't think I've ever owned West German beads before, at least not to my knowledge. I really didn't know much about the history of glass bead-making in Germany at all. The conversation then led to the subject of WWII. During the war, many bead factories in Czechoslovakia and West Germany were forced to close down. Any beads that were made during or prior to that time were hidden for many years, and it seems that they are just now re-surfacing. It makes me wonder how many more of these beads are still hidden... :o