Radioactive Beads!!

When I first saw Vaseline beads I was totally bowled over.  The glass beads lying on the cold dirty cement floor in front of me were a beautiful soft greeny blue colour that somehow resembled vaseline in texture.   This doesn't really make sense for the very quality of glass is hard and cold.  And yet these had a warmth that totally denied their substance.  The beads in front of me were so desirable but financially out of my reach at the time.
These particular ones dated back to the early 1800's and would have been made in Bohemia - modern day Czekoslavakia.  The soft green colour was obtained by the addition of uranium salts a process that became very popular in the early 1900's when people in many parts of the world were obsessed with the florescent qualities of uranium salts.
True early vaseline beads can be identified by their shape with rondelles and discs were by far the most common , although some do have cut facets.

Vaseline Beads became highly sought after among tribes in Mali and Ethiopia, many of whom believed the beads to be vessels inhabited by spirits.
A considerable demand for ivory, rhinoceros horn and gold drew foreign traders towards trading centres along the eastern and southern coasts of Africa since earliest times. Glass beads, which were highly prized by African communities for use as everyday adornment, ceremonial costumes or objects of barter, featured high on the list of imported items that were exchanged for these commodities. From the eighth to the sixteenth century AD the market was dominated by supplies from South Asia (India) and Southeast Asia. With the arrival of European traders in southern Africa the trade routes slowly shifted from India towards Europe and, from the mid-seventeenth century onwards, European beads conquered the market [1].

I used several Vaseline Beads on a necklace called "Party in Port Harcourt"  a bold necklace made of wax fabric and raw silk and on a pendant necklace called Serengeti.