Vintage Venetian Red White Heart Trade Beads: 120 Bead Strand

Traditional "White Heart" Trade BeadsIn the antique bead trade, a White Heart (historically known as Cornaline d'Aleppo or Hudson's Bay Beads) is not heart-shaped at all. Instead, the name refers to its unique physical structure: The Core: An opaque, solid white glass center.The Jacket: A surrounding outer layer of translucent colored glass—most famously ruby red, but also made in green, blue, yellow, and violet.The Purpose: The white core acts as an internal mirror. When light hits the bead, it passes through the outer colored glass, bounces off the white core, and reflects back out, giving the colored layer a highly luminous, bright glow. Historically produced in Venice from the late 1600s and later in Bohemia (the Czech Republic) and France starting in the 1800s, these became massively popular in global trade networks across North America, Africa, and Asia