them shiny because of the heat; it was a kind of fire polishing. The expression “schmelz”
(molten) is taken by some authors as going back to the process of polishing by heat in fire
(Lilie 1895, p. 166); improvements lead to “double molten”(twice-polished beads) or to the
“new double molten” which was made in especially good quality from sharp-edged glass
produced by Riedel (Posselt 1907, p. 10).
The expression “abraded” bead is confusing because it is not the bead itself that is
abraded: the inside surface of the mold was so highly polished with an abrasive that the
surface of the bead was already shiny after the press-molding and did not need any
additional polishing. According to Posselt, bigger beads were polished at a wooden wheel
first; fire polishing in a polishing furnace followed later. Fire polishing is supposed to have
been invented by accident more than 100 years ago by a man from Neudorf:
“He dried the beads in the oven with a very hot fire and left them in rather long (he probably forgot
to take them out in time). The beads had begun to melt and because of that, they took on a mar-
velous shine" (Posselt 1907, p. 8, 9).
The so-called “machine-beads”were made by throwing raw broken beads into a box with a
grindstone; the sharp edges were rounded off through rotating, then polished. One con-
temporarysourcegivesdetailedinformationontheprocessesusedforpolishingtowardstheend
of the 19th Century (R.S., Das Schleifen künstlicher Edelsteine, Sprechsaal 1896, p. 1026).
MOLDED BEADS
Beads with a wide variety of appearances were pressed into shape. These processes,
referred to as “squeezing,” “molding”or “pressing,”also involved an extremely wide variety
of tools and machines. “Molding "and “squeezing”were expressions which were apparently
used for simpler tongs and shop-work, pressing was more likely to have been reserved for
processes involving machinery. There is mention in 1856 of “molding works” and
“squeezing workshops” (Reichenberg Report 1856, p. 166), of “pressing or squeezing
work,”also still found in 1880 (Karmarsch-Heeren 4/1880, p. 52); and Parkert speaks of the
“molded or pressed bead” (Parkert 1925, pp. 184, 185). According to Parkert, the glass
worker Domenico Miotti and the glass maker Christophore Briani are to be credited with the
first attempts at technical improvements in bead production concerned with giving a solid
bead a special shape by pressing (Parkert 1925, p. 132, 133).
In Bohemia at the beginning of the 18th Century, according to Schreyer, the Wenzel
brothers and Franz Fischer in Turnau had already
“invented a different means... using iron pincer-molds for pressing out 10 to 15 and more of the
same stones at one time, so that proper facets appeared on each pressed stone with this method
because the iron mold was already shaped that way...” (Schreyer 1790, p. 93).
In a report by the Count von Zinzendorf from the year 1774 there is already talk of a pair of
tongs with a mold in which the desired figure is “pinched”(Kleinert 1972, p. 17).
The introduction of molding in Gablonz is attributed to a “certain Endler”by Benda:
“The invention of ‘molding’ stones into shapes has caused the stone cutting profession to be re-
duced to a common trade. In Turnau they already practiced this molding in the last Century, but
kept the secret of how to do it very strictly... Nevertheless, a certain Endler from Gablonz must
have succeeded in finding out something about it, since he erected the first molding hut in Gab
lonz toward the end of the last Century. This Endler, known under the name, ‘the old molder,'
must have been born around the year 1760 and was, to a certain extent, a genius... But just as
peculiar as brilliant, Endler knew how to make inventions better than how to make money with
them. He had to be in a good mood to mold a few hundred dozen stones for someone, after good
money and a lot of persuasion ... And so it turned out that the composition molding works in our
area were not trained further and was at a very low state for a while after Endler’s death ... It
wasn’t until the years between 1817and 1820 that Anton Mai, No. 146, erected the first composi
tion furnace in Gablonz (farther away in the mountains there was a certain Seidel who was sup
posed to have made compositions earlier) and he made ruby and garnet colored compositions
which he molded into beads. His first molders were Abraham Dubsky from Turnau and Wenzel
Jäckel from Gablonz...”(Benda 1877, p. 281 ff.).
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