Jan 24 2009
Why Are Red Glass Beads More Expensive?
If you’re a beader you’ve probably noticed that different colors of beads are different prices. You may have wondered why or just chalked it up to the different finishes. But the finish isn’t the only thing that determines the price of glass beads. If you’ve been buying beads for very long, you may have noticed that certain colors fluctuate in value more than others.
Some historians believe that the Egyptians were the first to discover that adding powdered metals to molten glass changed the color of the glass. In her article “Fabulous Fakes” Judith Illes suggests that the Egyptians equated certain metals with certain Deities as well as specific spiritual and therapeutic values. They may have been the first to set the value of gold above all other metals, as it represented the Solar Deity, even though, at times, silver was more highly prized because it was not as readily available in their area.
“To the basic formula of sand (silica), soda and lime, cobalt was added to create a blue shade, copper for green, tin was used to produce a milky white while the addition of gold created red. The willingness to incorporate gold into a formula to enhance the beauty of glass indicates that glass was not merely considered a substitute for something precious, but was valuable in its own right.” Exerpt from Fabulous Fakes.
AH HA! That’s why my red and pink beads are more expensive than some other colors. Although cobalt was used to produce blue glass, copper to produce green, and still are to some extent, other less expensive materials have been found to be good substitutes so the prices of those colors don’t fluctuate as much as the reds and pinks.
It seems that the popularity of red never diminishes in the fashion world. Every season one shade of red or another is always present. Red is the color of life, and even if the designers and trend setters don’t recognize that fact, it draws all of us. Whether red is our favorite color or not, we’ve all got something red in our wardrobe don’t we? I guess if we’re going to accessorize with our hand beaded jewelry, we’ll just have to resign ourselves to the fact that red beads cost more.
