Tortoise Amber Glass Twist Necklace Neu Gablonz 1950s Jewelry

It might be easy for one to dismiss the beads on this necklace as common but they are anything but common. Over the past several decades, we here in the US have seen so much Chinese junk jewelry that the importance of beads like this fails to be recognized by the average person. But, it is the history and rarity of these beads that makes them so valuable, and so very beautiful.

In 1918 in Thuringia, the town of Gablonz, which has produced glass beads since the mid 1700's, was given back to Czechoslovakia after the war. All of the German bead makers there were forced to leave. They left the Iser mountains and went southeast into Bavaria and formed a new center for bead making called Neu-Gablonz. The Germans' attitude was basically : Fine, you don't want us here then we will leave and continue producing glass beads elsewhere. Hence, a new era in bead making was born.

The small Tortoise glass round ribbed beads are hand wound beads. These tortoise glass beads were made in Neu-Gablonz but it is the large Amber glass twist beads that were a new design in Neu-Gablonz in the 1940-1950 era. They are called Amber glass and have incredible luminosity as they were made to look like real Amber. (They are drawn beads; long pulled canes of glass that were twisted.) The necklace also has small black glass rounds and gold lined Citrine seed beads. Also notice the original 1940-1950 era original brass barrel clasp.

A medium long antique design, the necklace is 30" long or 76 cm long. The Amber twist beads are 3/4" or 20 mm long. The tortoise beads are 7 mm. The entire necklace is in excellent clean condition and there are no cracks or chips to any of the beads. The necklace was originally strung on cotton cord. I have restrung the necklace for you on Acculon, or Teflon coated stainless steel wire.

Comes gift wrapped and shipped in a new luxury presentation necklace box.