What trade terms mean, where they come from, how we know.
Records: 31
A trade name for the large, amber-looking beads circulating in the African bead trade. The literature records that these beads are phenolic resin and are almost never marketed as such; here “amber” describes the look, not the material.
Implied material: PHENOLIC
A Turkish trade name for red-to-orange translucent bead material; it appears as a material caption in a published exhibition catalogue. The recorded usages point to cast phenolic resin: “amber” here names the colour and look, not natural amber.
Implied material: PHENOLIC_CAST
In the dictionary sense, sea-turtle shell — a material regulated under CITES. In the trade, however, “bağa” most often denotes cast phenolic resin of the catalin family rather than shell. The two senses share one word; only measurement, not the term, tells them apart.
Implied material: TORTOISESHELL
The Turkish rendering of Bakelite, the first and best-known trade name for phenolic resins. In the trade it is used as a catch-all for the whole phenolic class, so it does not distinguish filled moulded phenolic from unfilled cast phenolic.
Implied material: PHENOLIC
A bead form with an elliptical (oval) profile. It appears as “Beyzî” in the cut field of the published catalogue and occurs across very different materials, from amber to shell: it names a shape, not a material.
A name for prayer beads turned from old billiard balls that have been cut down and re-worked. The catalogue caption records the material as catalin, an unfilled cast phenolic.
Implied material: PHENOLIC_CAST
A cast-phenolic brand registered in the United States in the 1920s (American Catalin Company, later Catalin Corp.). It denotes translucent phenolic resin made by a two-stage process and containing no fillers such as sawdust or carbon black. Written “katalin” in Turkish.
Implied material: PHENOLIC_CAST
An established name in the Middle Eastern trade for red, translucent beads. The literature treats it as a notable conflation of natural and synthetic material terminology; the material so named is cast phenolic, and the red colour comes from aurin.
Implied material: PHENOLIC_CAST
A compound name in circulation in the trade but treated as meaningless in the literature: a substance is either copal or amber, not both. In practice the term serves to sell copal or phenolic beads under the name of amber.
Implied material: PHENOLIC
A name for the veined, swirled pattern seen in faturan / cast phenolic material; English sources call it “marbled” or “swirled”. It qualifies a pattern, not a material.
Implied material: PHENOLIC_CAST
A retail category name used in Turkey for natural, transparent to translucent amber; the published catalogue uses it as a material caption, “Baltic damla amber”. It is not a cut name — the drop-shaped bead form has its own entry.
Implied material: AMBER_BALTIC
A bead form turned to a drop (teardrop) shape. It appears as “Damla” in the cut field of the catalogue and occurs in materials from amber to shell; it says nothing about the material.
In its documented sense, the trade name recorded in German sources from 1917 for Dr. Heinrich Traun & Sohn's phenol-formaldehyde replacement for hard rubber. The trade tells it differently — a “mixture of amber, resins and incense”. The first is documented; the second is a story.
Implied material: PHENOLIC_CAST
The most sought-after and most expensive pattern in faturan / cast phenolic, showing gold-coloured flows through the material. The “melted gold” account is a market claim, not a measured composition.
Implied material: PHENOLIC_CAST
Green material sold by amber dealers under names such as “natural green Caribbean amber” or “very rare Baltic amber”. Gemmological study records it as copal treated with heat and pressure; the qualifier “natural” is not supported by the source.
Implied material: COPAL
Literally a grain of cereal; the common term collectors and makers use for a prayer-bead. Listings state bead size and bead count with this word (“99 habbe”).
A wavy, moiré-like figure on the bead surface. It is one of the pattern types that bear on value in Ottoman pressed material; the source lists hare, spiral hare, straight vein and “simli” together.
“Hâtime” — the finial piece at the top of the imame where the prayer bead string ends. The same piece is also called tepelik; two names, one object.
The Turkish name for unfilled cast phenolic resin, taken from the Catalin brand. In the collectors' hierarchy of value it sits on the lower rungs, alongside “German gum” (sıkma) and the “bağa” type.
Implied material: PHENOLIC_CAST
Kazaz work: gold or silver wire braided by hand, used in the tassel, the cord and the imame fitting of a prayer bead string. It qualifies metalwork, not bead material; the catalogue records it as “gold kazaz”.
Implied material: METAL
A prayer bead string made by re-cutting beads taken from an old necklace. Together with “made from habbe”, it is recorded as a mode of production ranking below turning from a single block of material.
Implied material: PHENOLIC_CAST
Bead material turned from the very hard, non-porous stone of a tropical fruit of Indian origin. It darkens over time with the oils of the hand; that darkening is a known behaviour of the material, not a defect.
Implied material: SEED
A bead turned fully round (spherical). It appears as “Kürevî” in the catalogue's glossary; it names a form and says nothing about the material.
Transparent rock crystal of the quartz family, known as “necef” as a bead material. The same word is also applied in the trade to colourless glass and synthetic stones, so the name alone does not establish the material.
Implied material: QUARTZ_FAMILY
A prayer bead string turned from an older object — a cane or umbrella handle, a desk pad, a cigarette holder — that has been cut down. In the hierarchy of value it sits immediately below turning from a single block.
Implied material: PHENOLIC_CAST
A black, matte, light stone quarried around Oltu near Erzurum, recorded as “Oltu stone” as a bead material. The recorded usages link it to jet — black fossilised wood — as classified in the international literature.
Implied material: JET
Not a material name. The qualifier “Ottoman” carries a constructed narrative of authenticity rather than a period of manufacture; its presence in a listing does not date the object to the Ottoman era.
A bead form with a swollen belly and pointed ends, resembling a lemon. It appears as “Sığırcık” both in the catalogue's glossary and in its cut field.
The Turkish trade name for faturan: “Ottoman sıkma (amber)”. The peer-reviewed source records the material as phenolic resin. The same word is also used for material pressed from genuine amber chips; the two usages diverge in the sources and stand side by side in the contradiction record on this page.
Implied material: PHENOLIC_CAST
The piece at the end of the imame that gathers the cord, resembling a nişane. Because it is where the string ends, the same piece is also called “hâtime”.
Re-turning the beads of an existing string so that the underlying body is exposed. It counts as a lower rung in the hierarchy of value: the object looks new, but the material and the beads are old.
Entries in preparation are not shown here until published; a draft entry must not read like a verified one.
This guide does not identify the material of an object; it records how a term is used in the market, with its sources.