Interesting Facts
- In the 17th and 18th centuries the beads were used as a favourite “legal tender” on the Guinea coast, one could get for instance ivory for them.
- The French Enlightenment philosophers Diderot and d´Alembert described the production of blown beads in their Encyclopaedia.
- The production of hollow beads was such a lucrative business in the early 20th century that ten Japanese set out for the town of Jablonec nad Nisou in 1912 to copy the production technology. The production of beads then actually started in Japan and represented a bitter competition for Czech producers.
- Till today the beads are part of both Czech and German folk costumes.
