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Anybody else carry one?

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jackley

40 Cal.
Joined
Jan 30, 2012
Messages
459
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258
Location
Wyoming at the base of the Big Horns
Bead bag that is. Saw my bag the other day and I thought I would share this with you. Maybe somebody else would start this up again.

Years ago about 25 or 30 of us got together for a monthly shoot sometimes one day, sometimes a weekend. We all carried bead bags and after the formal shooting was over and after dinner and before libation started. If you wanted to shoot more you would go up to somebody and ask if they would want to shoot for a bead, if they agreed you would mark a X on a board and shoot offhand at the X from 25 yards closest to the center. Who ever lost had to give their bead bag to the winner and he got to take what ever bead he wanted from the losers bag. Sometimes everybody was back at the line shooting for beads. You didn't want to put your $20.00 bead in this bag. Everybody had nice beads though. No real cheapies that I ever saw.

To bad almost all have gone under or are to old they don't want to shoot anymore. But I still carry my bead bag. Brings back alot of memories.
GEDC0197.JPG

Enjoy!
Jerry
 
Saw my bag the other day and I thought I would share
Oooh, Buddy,, Is that your bag "collection" from all those years back?
There's a few in there I'd shoot and try ta snatch from ya,, ;)

For them's that might not know, jackley's got more then a few real live 2-300yr old original Trade Beads in that photo.
Jerry,(?) I'd guess you just shook out about $100 worth (or better) of beads from that bag,, :thumb:
 
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Oooh, Buddy,, Is that your bag "collection" from all those years back?
There's a few in there I'd shoot and try ta snatch from ya,, ;)

For them's that might not know, jackley's got more then a few real live 2-300yr old original Trade Beads in that photo.
Jerry,(?) I'd guess you just shook out about $100 worth (or better) of beads from that bag,, :thumb:

I really don't know much about beads, but I kinda like em. I got those beads when we started our group in about 1968. They didn't cost much then. All our beads were about the same. If I remember right somebody went to Friendship and we all gave him a few bucks and he picked them up for us. They have been passed back and forth between us till about 1980. When the group broke up and life got in the way. I was the youngest of the group by atleast 10 or 12 years. Lost track of some of the guy's, only two left besides me that I know of. One is in a home the other one is still living at home.

Jerry
 
more then a few real live 2-300yr old original Trade Beads in that photo.

I have enjoyed making some items, most necklaces with bear claws, using beads. But, like arrowheads, powder horns, and some other items, I cannot distinguish old/antique beads from new ones of the same style. So, I have never invested big bucks in beads. Methinks a 50-cent bead looks just as fine on a necklace as a near identical one the seller claimed was 100-300 years old and sold for hundreds of dollars. Sorry if that is a party pooper post, just the reality of things as I see it.
 
I've found the history of trade beads and the european manufactuer fascinating and have spent a ton of time studying on such. We have such early trade history here in Minn.
I could ramble for hours on the subject. But for someone studied, the difference between reproductions and originals is fairly easy to see.
(it has to do with materials available then vs now)
Those 4 White ones with spiral blue lines are called Great Lakes (delft)-10ea
2 small red ones look like Green Hearts (hold'm up to the light, a translucent green center)-5ea
That oblong black Feather-20
That big white one with red/blue lines,,
There's a couple more in there and some reproductions.
Those 1st 6 strung together with some small metal or bone rounds for small spacers would make a nice necklace.

The stuff is still out there, they traded in Africa too (earlier and longer), much more then they did here and massive supply's of era-original beads are coming over hitting our current market. But prices spiked about 15yrs ago
 
A friend showed up one year with old ‘French Sex Beads’. They were old porcelain white bead with blue figures engaged in not rated g activities. A ‘French Post Card’cr ? They were old but fifty or two hundred I couldn’t say. He had three or four broken cain beads about an inch long half an inch thick with rough ends.
 
It's been decades, but I've been to that type of shoot a few times. Only we didn't carry a bag. You offered up your best bead, and so did the other shooter. Now if you had a cheapo bead..., nobody would want to shoot for it, so you made sure you had a bead that was a pretty good offer. Some were antique, and some were well made modern glass copies of the old Venetian beads.

One shoot I attended, you paid a dollar to shoot, and you got a glass trade bead (modern copy of an original pattern) on a leather thong for around your neck. A "relay" of shooters of about five people, would line up and shoot at a metal plate, shooting offhand, at 20 yards..(hanging on a chain with a backstop and inch or two behind...goggles were needed too in case of splatter). IF you missed, you took off your bead, and handed it to the judge. Those that didn't miss, backed up 5 yards, reloaded, and shot again. This was repeated until only one shooter from the relay remained..., that shooter got the other four beads. After five relays of five shooters, there was a group of folks who had won their relays, so they shot against each other, in the same manner. At the end of that, there were four who each had a four-bead necklace, and one who had a nice, nine-bead necklace as the overall winner. ;)



LD
 
I really don't know much about beads, but I kinda like em. I got those beads when we started our group in about 1968. They didn't cost much then. All our beads were about the same. If I remember right somebody went to Friendship and we all gave him a few bucks and he picked them up for us. They have been passed back and forth between us till about 1980. When the group broke up and life got in the way. I was the youngest of the group by atleast 10 or 12 years. Lost track of some of the guy's, only two left besides me that I know of. One is in a home the other one is still living at home.

Jerry
I'd encourage you to pay a visit to the guy in the nursing home. It can get pretty lonely there, aside from the other residents they see every day. Just seeing the bead bag may spark some memories, conversation, and laughter.
 
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