Volume 21

Beads is published annually by the Society of Bead Researchers, a non-profit scientific-educational organization which aims to foster serious research on beads and beadwork of all materials and periods, and to expedite the dissemination of the resultant knowledge. Subscription is by membership in the Society. Membership is open to all persons involved in the study of beads, as well as those interested in keeping abreast of current trends in bead research.

The Bead Forum: Newsletter of the Society of Bead Researchers was initiated in 1982 by Peter Francis, Jr., to facilitate communication between bead researchers. Over the years it has provided news about the society, announcements of relevant exhibitions, conferences, and recent publications, requests for information, memorials, and short articles and news items on various aspects of bead research. The two latter contain much useful information that is, unfortunately, not readily available to many researchers who do not own the set or have forgotten what is in the earlier issues. Furthermore, few libraries and museums have full sets in their collections. To resolve this situation, a broad selection of the articles and other items that appeared in the first forty issues are reprinted in this volume of Beads where they will be readily available in a more permanent format. While some of the material is dated, it is nevertheless interesting from a historical research perspective. Obsolete contact information has been deleted from some items and updated information has been added to others.

The articles are arranged by author (the author’s name is appended to the title) with each author’s articles in chronological sequence. The original date, issue number, and page numbers of each article appear after the author’s name. A subject index is provided at the back of this issue.