Seed beads are uniformly shaped, spheroidal bead

Bead

A bead is a small, decorative object that is usually pierced for threading or stringing. Beads range in size from under to over in diameter. A pair of beads made from Nassarius sea snail shells, approximately 100,000 years old, are thought to be the earliest known examples of jewellery. Beadwork...

s ranging in size from under a millimeter to several millimeters. "Seed bead" is a generic term for any small bead. Usually rounded in shape, seed beads are most commonly used for loom and off-loom bead weaving

Bead weaving

Bead weaving using seed beads can be done either on a loom or using one of a number of off-loom stitches.-On-loom beadweaving:thumb|355px|An old bead loom. 1. Roller. 2. Roller end. 3. Spacers. 4. Spacers....

. They may be used for simple stringing, or as spacers between other beads in jewelry. Larger seed beads are used in various fiber crafts for embellishment, or crochet

Crochet

Crochet is a process of creating fabric from yarn, thread, or other material strands using a crochet hook. The word is derived from the French word "crochet", meaning hook. Hooks can be made of materials such as metals, woods or plastic and are commercially manufactured as well as produced by...

 with fiber or soft, flexible wire. The largest size of a seed bead is 1° ("one-aught", sometimes written 1/0) and the smallest is 24°, about the size of a grain of sand. However, seed beads that are size 5° or 6° are usually called "pony beads" rather than "seed beads"; the next larger class of seed beads, from 3° to 4°, are usually called "trade beads"; the largest class of seed beads, including 1°, 2°, and anything larger, are usually referred to as "crow beads." Most modern seed bead work is done using 11° or 12° size beads. The extremely small class of seed beads size 15° and smaller have not been in production since the 1890s and any in existence are usually considered antiques. The very small holes in the centers of most seed beads means that stringing them usually requires the use of a specialized long narrow needle called a beading needle.

Construction techniques

Two principal techniques are used to produce seed beads: the wound method and the drawn method. The wound method is the more-traditional technique, is more time consuming, and is no longer used in modern bead production: in this technique, a chunk of glass known in glassmaking as a gather

Glassblowing

Glassblowing is a glassforming technique that involves inflating molten glass into a bubble, or parison, with the aid of a blowpipe, or blow tube...

 and composed mainly of silicon

Silicon

Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. A tetravalent metalloid, it is less reactive than its chemical analog carbon, the nonmetal directly above it in the periodic table, but more reactive than germanium, the metalloid directly below it in the table...

 is heated on an iron bar until molten. A second bar of iron is then inserted into the gather and the two bars quickly drawn apart creating a long glass rod (the final width of which would depend on how quickly and how far the bars are separated before the glass solidifies). This rod is then cut into shorter rods for handling. Next, one of these is re-heated and wound around a hot metal wire creating a ring of glass which is then worked and shaped until smooth and round. This is done several times on the same wire creating a series of glass rings. Once the wire cools, the rings would be slipped off and then used as beads. For the drawn method, an air bubble is created within the gather and as the iron bars are drawn apart they produce a long tube rather than a rod. This tube is then cooled, cut into rings, and the rings are tumbled to remove sharp edges before being used as beads.

National origin

Before World War II, there was a thriving bead industry centered in eastern Europe, especially in Bohemia, before 1918 a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire and a part of the Republic of Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

 after, although Germany, Italy and France were also noted producers of glass beads. Most of these beads were made of glass, but some were made of metal, usually aluminum or steel, and often cut in what is known as "three-cut" faceting; these are popularly known as steel cuts. Many of the old factories were converted or destroyed during World War II. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, treasure troves of old beads made their way to Western markets. These "vintage" beads are highly prized, and are now harder to find.

Most contemporary high-quality seed beads are made in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 or the Czech Republic

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

. Japanese seed beads are generally more uniform in size, shape, and finish as well as having larger holes than Czech seed beads of the same size, but the Japanese make fewer styles.

Some seed beads produced in France are available in historic "old-time" colors and are popular for use in repairing or replicating antiquities.

Lesser quality seed beads are produced in India, in People's Republic of China (PRC) and in Taiwan. Beads from these countries are less uniform in shape, hole size and finish. Dyed seed beads may transfer the dye to clothing or skin. Other seed beads have an external coating that will rub away to reveal a completely different color underneath.

Generally, less expensive beads are more susceptible to the ravages of time no matter their country of origin.

Colors and Finishes

• Color lined - a color coating is applied inside the beads; sometimes this is not very durable and the color of finished work may appear very different in a short time
• Transparent - the glass is see-through
• Translucent - one can see light through the bead, although the light is diffused
• Opaque - the solid color prevents light from passing through the bead
• Matte - the bead is textured on a microscopic level to result in a matte finish
• Silver-lined - a silvery coating which reflects light is applied to the inside of the seed bead
• Copper-lined - a coppery coating which reflects a reddish light is applied to the inside of the seed bead
• Bronze-lined - a bronzy coating which reflects a brown light is applied to the inside of the seed bead
• Luster or lustre - a transparent "pearl" effect applied to the surface of the seed bead
• AB or aurora borealis - a rainbow effect applied to the surface of a seed bead

Formulas for different colors of glass are closely guarded. The recipe for a true black glass was lost during World War I, and modern black glass held to sunlight is a deep purple. Examples of true black glass are circulating in jewelry pieces made to commemorate the funeral of Queen Victoria.

Glass rods made with concentric layers of color or stripes of color can be used to make patterns of color in seed beads.

Seed bead machinery uses glass rods softened to a red heat, fed into a steel die

Die (manufacturing)

A die is a specialized tool used in manufacturing industries to cut or shape material using a press. Like molds, dies are generally customized to the item they are used to create...

 stamp that forms the shape of the bead with a reciprocating needle that forms the hole. Manual and automatic machinery is in use in the Czech Republic

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

. As the steel dies wear eventually, they are replaced.

Cylinder beads

During the last decade, a new shape of Japanese seed bead, the cylinder

Cylinder (geometry)

A cylinder is one of the most basic curvilinear geometric shapes, the surface formed by the points at a fixed distance from a given line segment, the axis of the cylinder. The solid enclosed by this surface and by two planes perpendicular to the axis is also called a cylinder...

 bead, has become increasingly popular. They were invented by Masayoshi Katsuoka of the Miyuki Shoji Company in the 1980s.
Unlike regular rounded seed beads, the cylinder beads are quite uniform in shape and size and have large holes for their size. Their flattened ends mean that work created with cylinder beads has a flat, smooth texture. Rows and columns in weaving

Weaving

Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...

 line up more uniformly, so pattern work comes out more accurate and even. These beads are often more expensive than round seed beads.

There are now three versions of cylinder beads:

• Delica made by Miyuki. Delicas are currently made in four sizes: 15/0 (the smallest), 11/0, 10/0, and 8/0. Delica varieties include a "cut" Delica that reflects light from flat facets.
• Treasures (formerly Antiques) is the brand name of cylindrical beads made by Toho
• Aiko - an new, precise-cut bead made by Toho, that comes in hundreds of colors, introduced in 2005.

Charlotte cut beads

Charlotte cuts are usually 13° seed beads that have part of the surface of the bead cut (or "faceted") to produce more shine. Charlotte is specifically a term for single faceted beads but can also be used when 2 or 3 facets are added to the bead to add more sparkle. Charlottes with 2 or 3 cuts to the surface are also known as "two-cut" or "three cut" beads but "charlotte" is the generally accepted term for this group of seed beads, though some choose to use the term more specifically for beads with one cut surface, preferring "two-cut" or "three-cut" to be used for the other variations.

Bugle beads

Bugle beads have different lengths but all bugle beads will be longer than they are thick, creating a tubular shape. They often range from 1/2" to 2" in length, and may be twisted.

Units of measure

The aught system of classifying seed beads is widely used but is often imprecise. The measurements given below for bead diameter are meant to suggest the industry standard but are not absolute-- in fact, variation from one manufacturer to the next may be greater than the variation within a single aught-size of bead.

Aught size	Diameter (mm)
1°	6.5
2°	6.0
3°	5.5
4°	5.0
5°	4.5
6°	4.0-4.3
7°	3.4-4.0
8°	2.5-3.1
9°	2.2-2.7
10°	2.0-2.3
11°	1.8-2.1
12°	1.7-1.9
13°	1.5-1.7
14°	1.4-1.6
15°	1.30-1.40
16°	1.25-1.35
17°	1.2
18°	1.15-1.20
20°	1.0-1.17
22°	1.02
24°	0.091

Hanks

A hank

Hank

In the textile industry, a hank refers to a unit of yarn or twine that is in a coiled form. This is often the best form for use with hand looms, compared to the cone form needed for power looms. Hanks come in a fixed length depending on the type of material, so the term hank is sometimes used as a...

 is unit bundle of strands of seed beads or bugle beads. A typical hank has twelve 20" (51 cm) strands of beads. Different sizes and types of beads may be sold in hanks which have different numbers and lengths of strands. Different hanks (age, type, size) have from 8 to 14 strands, and lengths vary from 8 to 20 inches per strand. For example, Charlotte size 13° cut beads are generally on short hanks, containing 12 twelve-inch strands. Some vintage

Vintage

Vintage, in wine-making, is the process of picking grapes and creating the finished product . A vintage wine is one made from grapes that were all, or primarily, grown and harvested in a single specified year. In certain wines, it can denote quality, as in Port wine, where Port houses make and...

 18° hanks have 10 strands of 8-10 inches (200 to 250 mm) each. 1 hank = 3.333 fathoms = 6.667 yards = 20 feet = 6096mm = 609.6 cm = 6.096 meters = x grams.

Czech

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

seed beads are sold from the factories by the hank. They are often repackaged into tubes, bags, or other containers for retail sale, in quantities varying from 5 grams to 40 or more grams. When Czech beads are repackaged, they are usually sold by the gram, which creates some confusion on how many beads come on a hank. Not every 20 inch strand of size 11° beads weighs the same.

A hank of size 2° bugles or size 11° seed beads generally weighs between 30 and 40 grams, depending on manufacturing variations, coatings or linings. Purchasing Czech beads by the hank is usually a better value than repackaged beads.

A production run of a custom made seed bead is eight kilograms. The beads are produced in the Czech Republic using a ten kilogram rod of color glass. The excess glass is recycled to form new rods. The color glass rods are produced from a larger mass melt of some ten metric tons.

Weight

Japanese beads are sold by gram weight, seldom by the hank. Buying Japanese beads by the hank usually costs about twice as much, therefore, they are not usually sold or purchased from Japan in this manner.

Most Japanese seed beads are repackaged for retail sale in manageable quantities based on price codes. More expensive beads may be sold in 2.5 or 5 gram units. Standard Japanese seed beads are usually sold in approximately 10 gram tubes. Thus, a 250 gram wholesale package would fill 25 tubes — a bit more than the average beader would need.

One major supplier, Miyuki, sells factory packages which contain up to 1 kg of beads, and are almost always repackaged into tubes or other containers for retail sale. To accommodate the average "wholesale" customer, whether it be a bead shop or designer, some larger distributors have made deals to receive their wholesale packages of beads in smaller (50 to 250 gram) pre-packaged sizes.

Toho, the other major Japanese supplier, seems to have a more flexible packaging policy. Many of the tubed seed beads that can be found in craft stores are stamped with their name on the bottoms, indicating both a wholesale and retail packaging setup.