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Click a picture below to see one of this month's new beads. To receive free shipping enter "freeship16" (without the commas) in the box at checkout, and click "Redeem Coupon". Use NOW - as expires Thursday 24th April 08. Only for use at MrBead.com or MrBead.co.uk and cannot be used with any other discount or eBay.
Most Expensive Beads in the World!
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A Lukut Sekala from Sarawak: 1988 price US$4,000 |
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Yet these don't even come close to the most money spent for a bead! In 1988 over US$700,000 dollars was paid for a necklace of jade beads. This works out to about $8000 per bead. Back in 1973 a jade necklace with fewer beads sold for the equivalent of $12,000 per bead. In 1998 a jadeite necklace of 30 beads sold at Christie's Hong Kong for $942,308, or $31,410 per bead. At the same auction a double-strand jadeite necklace fetched over $450,000 and a strand of black jadeite beads more than $380,000.
However, the real record is a single pendant of jade that sold in Hong Kong in 1988 for $958,974, not Hong Kong dollars, but US dollars. Nearly a million!
Jade is the most valuable bead material. The Chinese valued jade above all else for thousands for years. It was used for jewelry, sacrifices, for painting and writing tools, seals, to bury with the dead and to wear while living. Jade was also prized by the ancient Mexicans and Central Americas. To them it was a symbol of water, therefore of life, and, indeed, a bearer of life itself. The last Aztec Emperor, Moctezuma, gave Cortés three jade beads and told him they were worth 100 pounds of gold each.
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