Ltd Gemstones, South Africa, & OOAKs

There are many broken-hearted collectors out there today. The Ltd Gemstone kits that first surfaced last month in the Netherlands & Belgium (?) appeared in the UK last week too. Select dealers that visted the Trollbeads booth at a certain jewellery show were able to buy these lovelies. You can read the story from Fable Trading's website, the UK distributor:
http://www.trollbeads.co.uk/gemstones-kit.html

If you want one and are willing to pay to make another collector rich, a few have been auctioned on Ebay or BeadSensation - just Google that one. But after seeing a faceted Snowflake Obsidian sell for almost $200US, my advice would be to wait & see. Tell Trollbeads how much you liked this Ltd Edition and maybe they will make more or release to other countries in the future. My favorite was the Blue Goldstone faceted beads, they seem to be really popular and super rare. I think this would bea a great addition to the regular Trollbeads line, as do other people I have chatted with.

The South Africa World Tour beads are to be released on February 25th, which is a Friday. Seems like an odd day of the week to me, but it was posted on the SA distributor's Facebook page so it must be true. I am very curious to see what the beads will be.

Rumors are still swirling about regarding the change in prices & possible "new designs" that will be coming for the OOAK beads. What is true is that OOAK prices have risen from 28Euros to 39 Euros in the EU countries, (from Glass 1 pricing to Glass 2), although some shops are holding the old stock OOAKs at the 28 Euro pricing and only marking up the new arrivals. We've not seen anything spectacular in the new shipments, so the jury is still out on this.

I have two theories. Well guesses. One is that TBs is perhaps having a hard time meeting the OOAK demand and by rising the prices this will control how many sell & make them more prized among collectors. Or two: there really are going to be some fabulous new designs coming out that perhaps cost more to produce. But one message is resounding clearly across the forums, collectors expect excellent quality control on the OOAKs. No more cracked glass, chips near cores, and poorly cored beads. I have to agree, as I purchased three stunning "new style" OOAKs from the UK and 1 had a glass crack, and the other two had chips near the core from the coring process. In all of my 300 other glass beads, I've only had 1 or 2 beads that were ever cracked or chipped like that when purchased new.

If you have had experiences, thoughts, or suggestions on changes you've noticed in the glass quality please leave a comment. It's a great way to get the message out to our friends at TBHQ.