IL Postcard
How to Profit From African Beads
Date: 04/09/2008Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Read more about making money through import-export in International Living Postcards—your daily escape
Russian Blues, Pink Pineapples, Bohemian Kakambas, and Venetian Ghosts. Bumblebees, Whiteheart Turquoise Blues, and Ethiopian Redeye Skunks.
The names alone make me want to track them down...
Attendees at last year’s Ultimate Event know all about my Global Treasures presentation, and also the big profits to be made from import-export. At this year’s Ultimate Event (May 28–31), I’ll share some of my wonderful new finds. On scouting trips, I see many curiosities that get resold for huge markups in the States. Thing is, I don’t explore everywhere on the planet.
IL’s main beat is overseas living and real estate. We investigate the world’s most enticing corners—places you dream of living. We’ve never had complaints that Ghana gets no coverage.
As I’m unlikely to get there soon, here’s an idea for adventurers. You wouldn’t need much capital, but the payoff could be massive. All you’ll need is an empty backpack.
Russian Blues and Pink Pineapples relate to African antique trade beads. Ghana’s markets are a treasure trove because of its slave trade legacy. They aren’t only sought after by jewelry designers and beadwork artists; enthusiasts and collectors also include African-Americans interested in their ancestral past. Demand is expected to grow due to an exhibition on Ghanaian beads in New Jersey’s Newark Museum running until June 2009.
Ghana’s antique beads originate from faraway places. Europeans exchanged beads made in Venice, Bohemia, Germany, and Holland for slaves, gold, and spices. Arabs used Indian, Islamic, Egyptian, and Roman beads. African traders from Mali, Mauritania, and Nigeria used beads made of agate, carnelian, gold, and even granite.
The most common antique beads are the colorful mosaic millefiori (Italian for "a thousand flowers"). Rarer chevron beads expose various layers of color, revealing a star pattern. Originating in Venice and Holland, typical chevrons are red, white, and blue. (Be careful of fakes produced in Asia.)
Held Thursdays, Africa’s largest wholesale bead market is in the Ghanaian town of Koforidua. With beads still important to local culture, it’s not only antiques. You’ll have to sift through contemporary glass beads, too. Agomenya’s Wednesday and Saturday market is another for the notebook.
Experts say traders inflate prices by at least 50% for foreigners, so haggle. Plus, you get better deals by paying in dollars. One collector got a strand of antique carnelian beads for $30 and a Venetian Feather beads strand for $12.
Here’s what antique trade beads cost according to one website I checked:
- Strand of nine Venetian Fancy beads from the late 1800s to early 1900s: $360
- Strand of 21 Venetian Cornaline d’Aleppo beads from the 1800s: $80
- Strand of nine green and white Venetian Feather beads from the mid-1800s: $110
- Strand of 11 Dutch Star chevrons: $200.
My advice? First, fully research antique beads and Internet prices. Then start bargaining at below 10% in local markets. Don’t pay more than 25% of prices you’ve already noted.
Last year, The New York Times reported on Beads of Paradise store on East 17th Street. Venetian chevrons were $65...for a single bead. Chevrons were worn by 18th-century Cameroon kings; each was often 3 inches long.
I read a trip report of a U.K. collector, who also bought a chevron bead at Koforidua. I don’t know whether it’s Dutch or Venetian, but she paid 40,000 cedis ($4). Markups are crazy: African Trade Beads has seven-layer Venetian chevrons from £22 ($44) apiece, depending on age, condition, and rarity value. One bead is priced at £132 ($264). Definitely keep an eye out for rare German marble trade beads. One eBay seller has 10 for $2,100.
Steenie Harvey
For International Living
P.S. I will tell you about more unusual finds at the Ultimate Event in Cancun, Mexico, May 28–31. Some are very unusual, indeed; for example, Irish carvings that may have been originally designed to cure monks of lustful thoughts…opium weights and a spirit house from Thailand…the Haitian voodoo doll I appease with offerings of rum and cigarettes before every trip to Vegas.
If you sign up today, you can join my table for dinner on the evening before the event (and it’s on me). I’ll answer any questions you may have about the import-export business and tell you endless entertaining stories about the treasures I've come across on my travels. To save your place at my table, simply call 1-866-381-8446 and say “dinner with Steenie.” But hurry, there are only seven places available.
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