Round Glass Trade Beads - 6mm

Product Details

Today, our 6mm Round Glass Trade Beads (round wound glass beads) remain an attractive choice for chokers, necklaces, earrings, bracelets, fashion jewelry and a wide variety of bead craft projects. Their traditional method of manufacture also provides a connection with one of the historic techniques used to produce glass trade beads for centuries.

Available in sizes 6mm, 8mm, and 10mm; see related items below.

These attractive Round Glass Trade Beads are produced using the mandrel-wound technique, one of the oldest methods of making individual glass beads and a technique with deep roots in the historic trade-bead industry.

Unlike drawn beads, which are made by producing a long hollow glass tube that is later cut into individual beads, a traditional wound bead is formed individually. Glass is heated until workable and wound around a metal rod called a mandrel, which forms the hole through the center of the bead. By rotating the mandrel as the softened glass is applied, the bead maker builds and shapes the bead around it. Historically, additional glass could also be applied to create multicolored and decorated wound beads.

Wound glass beads were produced in important European glassmaking centers and became part of the international trade in glass beads. During the North American fur trade, wound beads were among the many varieties of European glass beads traded through commercial networks reaching Native peoples across much of the continent. Archaeological collections from major western fur-trade posts contain numerous examples of wound glass beads.