Tesbihkâr app
A remote pre-assessment for your own tesbih.
What trade terms mean, where they come from, how we know.
Records: 30
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 resin
A trade name, within the cast phenolic family (faturan, catalin, bakelite), for beads whose interior looks plain, without moiré figure or veins; it appears as a material caption in a published exhibition catalogue. There is no colour restriction: listings offer it in green, blue, red and other colours. The claim that fire amber is “100% natural amber” appears in dealer texts and is a common story; dealer texts also contradict one another on this point.
Implied material: Cast phenolic
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: not shown; regulated material (CITES)
Sources disagreeThe 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. Nor does history: “Bakelite Cast Phenolic” was one of the registered trade names for cast resin, and in 1919 Bakelite Ltd. was producing half a ton of cast resin a week (it stopped in 1928; Catalin was produced in the United States after 1928).
Implied material: not shown; sources disagree
Sources disagreeA 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: Cast phenolic
A compound name in circulation in the trade. The bead-research literature (Falabella 2016, p. 9) treats it as “meaningless”: a substance is either copal or amber. In practice the name is applied to copal or phenolic beads. In resin science the boundary between copal and amber is a convention: Solórzano-Kraemer et al. (2020) report the earlier proposed limit of 1 million years and propose placing the boundary at 2.58 million years; there is no sharp chemical dividing line.
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: Cast phenolic
A retail category name used in Turkey for transparent to translucent amber; the published catalogue uses it as a material caption, “Baltic damla amber”. It is a trade term only: it carries no claim about origin (Baltic or non-Baltic) or about being natural. It is not a cut name — the drop-shaped bead form has its own entry.
Implied material: Fossil resin
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 of the phenol-formaldehyde replacement for hard rubber made by Dr. Heinrich Traun & Söhne of Hamburg. The earliest records of the name go back to the 1910s; sources differ on the starting year (1910, 1913, 1914, 1917). The approximate range given for production in Germany is 1917–1947. The trade tells it differently — a “mixture of amber, resins and incense”. The first is documented; the second is a story.
Implied material: Cast phenolic
Sources disagreeA name given to the pattern in faturan / cast phenolic in which gold-coloured flows are seen. Holdsworth and Faraj (2015, p. 5) report that this pattern is spoken of in the trade as the most sought-after kind of faturan; this is a market description, not a measured record of demand or price. The “melted gold” account is likewise a market claim, not a measured composition.
Green material offered in the trade 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.
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. Değirmenci (2018, p. 165), listing the pattern types that bear on value in the material known in the trade as “Ottoman sıkma”, names 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 cast phenolic resin, taken from Catalin — a cast-phenolic brand registered in the United States in the 1920s (American Catalin Company, later Catalin Corp.), written “katalin” in Turkish. The brand denotes phenolic resin made by casting; that material is most often unfilled and transparent to translucent, but opaque grades and filled castings exist as well — “unfilled” and “transparent” are the common case, not a defining requirement. In the collectors' hierarchy of value it sits on the lower rungs, alongside “German gum” (sıkma) and the “bağa” type.
Implied material: Cast phenolic
A qualifier for braided-wire (kazaz) work: it qualifies metalwork, not bead material. The catalogue records it as “gold kazaz”.
Implied material: Metal
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 great majority of beads sold under this name are cast phenolic, and the red colour comes from aurin. Dark red natural amber is sold under the same name as well, so the name alone does not determine the material.
Implied material: Cast phenolic
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: Cast phenolic
Bead material turned from the hard tissue of the coconut palm — sources differ on which: root or shell. 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
Sources disagreeA 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. Değirmenci (2018, p. 168) records that in collectors' hierarchy of value it sits immediately below turning from a single block.
Implied material: Cast phenolic
A black, matte, light stone quarried around Oltu near Erzurum, recorded as “Oltu stone” as a bead material. The recorded usages link it to the jet class of the international literature; the peer-reviewed literature calls it a “semi-precious coaly stone”, and whether it is classified as jet or as lignite varies by source. Its Turkish dictionary equivalent is “black amber” — the name is a simile: Oltu stone is not a resin but a coal of plant origin.
Implied material: Jet
Not a material name. Değirmenci (2018, p. 164) records that the qualifier “Ottoman” carries a constructed narrative of authenticity rather than a period of manufacture; its presence in a listing does not by itself 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. In trade usage “sıkma” names the cast phenolic family (faturan, catalin, bakelite) and is given to beads whose interior looks moiré-figured or veined. Pressed natural amber is traded under another name, “pres kehribar” (pressed amber). Dealer texts that describe sıkma as compressed amber powder repeat a common story that contradicts the published source.
Implied material: Cast phenolic
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. Değirmenci (2018, p. 168) records that collectors count it as a lower rung in their hierarchy of value. The object may look “new”; the beads, however, come from a string that already existed.
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.