Make timeless jewelry with African beads made of shell, stone, bone, clay, natural resins, wood and nuts!
Shells are among the oldest materials used by humans, for both currency and adornment.
Exotic batik bone bead patterns create bold centerpieces.
Sometimes you'll also find pumtek stone beads, beautiful amazonite beads, lovely carnelian beads, clay djenne beads, genuine fish and snake vertebrae, plus more.
These natural material beads provide great textures and accents for making one-of-a-kind (OOAK) jewelry.
Rings & Things founder, Russ Nobbs, loved trade beads and African Art. For many decades, he purchased trade beads from African traders -- for sale as well as for his personal collection. Since he passed away, we have slowed down on our trade bead purchasing, but we continue to research the beads he stashed away, and we periodically are able to add another batch of cool vintage beads from his personal collection to our website. Plus we can't resist an occasional purchase of unusual old gemstone beads, pretty colors of recycled glass beads, or even bone beads such as fish vertebrae or snake vertebrae when we can find them!
