I’ve never seen any other beads shaped like this. Are these Native American beads? If so, are they hand made?
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They are beautiful! I believe they are called “hogan” beads, or more simply, fluted beads. I will allow someone else who is more of an expert to weigh in on handmade vs. machine made. That’s a complicated question, and depends on whether the flat silver discs were purchased, then stamp-fluted and joined, or if the halves of each bead were purchased already domed/fluted and then hand soldered to form a bead, or of the entire bead was 100% hand fabricated. I believe it is also possible to buy ready-made beads like this from some of the jewelry supply shops. I’m not enough an expert to tell the difference.
I can tell you these are gorgeous and i would own them in a hot minute, hand made or not. Hand made will def effect the value, though.
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They are beautiful 
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Beautiful beads, these are handmade.
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Thank you! That makes me so happy to know that! Is there something specific you can point out that would tell me they are handmade?
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Jason has years and years of experience looking at things like this - it can take years to be able to tell the difference. There are a number of things to look at - the hole in the bead, the size/shape/finish of the seam where the two disks are joined, slight imperfections or irregularities in the flutes/stamping - I’ve learned to trust Jason’s opinions! There are a few others on this page that are also really knowledgeable.
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I understand. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust his opinion. I just wondered if there was something a novice could look for that would tell them. I guess the years of knowledge and experience is what you need!
Yes, Jason definitely knows his stuff!
And I think that’s a lesson right there… Handmade stuff will be a little uneven in spots, and the pieces should look just a tiny bit different from the other. That’s one of the things that I have learned from this forum to look for, is slight differences where things have been made or stamped. Machine-made items will be completely uniform.
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