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Malachite Beads

 

Carved Malachite Beads with obvious scarring on the edges - a drawback of using malachite in jewelry: it is relatively soft and brittle and will wear down and dull with time and use.

Small, Average Malachite Beads Here is a strand of nicely polished small malachite rondelles.  If you look closely, you will see that not all the beads actually match: there are slight variations in size as well as color.  These factors, combined with the small size of the beads, would make this strand very affordable.

Malachite Chip Beads: Malachite chips are small pieces of malachite that have just been tumble polished, rather than cut to a specific shape.  Small chips like this are probably the most affordable (and least valuable) kind of malachite beads.

 

Faceted Round Malachite Beads... Faceting on a bead, all other factors being equal, pretty much always makes it more valuable.  The light reflects of the facets, so that not only do you get beautiful color, but also a bit of a shine and glitter.  However, since malachite is soft, beads like this should only be used in necklaces, not bracelets, and there should be plenty of knotting or other spacer between the malachite beads and anything else on the strand that might scratch it (most things).

Rough Finish These malachite beads are poorly finished: you can see rough spots, chips and holes in many of them.

Is this Malachite? Even from a photo, you can see something different about it.  That's because it's not actually malachite.  These kinds of beads are sold as "simulated" or "immitation," and are usually made of some kind of dyed composite stone.  These are cheaper than malachite, but malachite itself is only a little more expensive, so why buy fake?

A nice, typical set of round malachite beads.  This necklace is a classic design of very well matched malachite beads.  This is a ncie way to wear malachite since it stays protected from sctaching by the double knots in between and by the safety of being around the neck (vs. the wrist or finger that are more active).  A malachite bead necklace like this does a great job of showcasing malachite's best feature: its color.  Such a necklace is an affordable alternative to jade or emerald.

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