I couldn’t believe my luck. I was digging in an old basement of a New York City building & stumbled upon 3 dusty boxes in the corner underneath a dusty piece of fabric. I wasn’t sure what the fabric was for – perhaps warding off potential shoppers. Maybe this stock was already sold… 40 years ago. I pulled off the fabric and gingerly opened the once-wet, then dried, crispy old cardboard flaps on the first box. What a find!

Inside were dusty plastic bags with gorgeous Lucite flower and leaves. Some were loose in the bags with “Made in Western Germany” paper tags tucked inside. Others were on yellowed cotton threads, also marked with paper tags on string. As I approached the fine woman who was helping me shop, I asked “Are these available?” “Oh my God!” she exclaimed! “WHERE did you find these?” They really weren’t tucked away in a vault. They were just sitting there, buried under dirt and dust and that piece of fabric that had protected these flowers from other would-be owner/diggers for a few years.

Most of you have read about our luck in 2004 when we were able to purchase the entire warehouse contents of Best Plastics: a manufacturer who had produced Lucite beads right in Rhode Island from the 1960’s – early 1980’s. But this stock did not include any of our flower beads that we have available. The Best Lucite buy had included rounds, ovals, hoops and rings, bangle bracelets and loads of other geometric shaped beads. Not a flower was to be found. It was in this other shopping trip I discovered above that we acquired the 3 boxes along with another case that the same vendor contacted me later about that they had stumbled upon. (They were in the process of moving out of their NYC building after 80 years in the business).

Since then, the flowers are selling down. Some are selling out. Many are being reproduced today due to the recent resurgence in the popularity of these beads. What is fabulous is that many of the original German manufacturers still exist or have access to the old moulds that their predecessors used decades ago. So a common question that we get when people stumble upon our Lucite flower bead collection is “Why does the same style bead in one color say ‘Vintage’ and the other color say ‘Contemporary’?” Valid question. And with so many bead dealers out there today misrepresenting their stock, even mistakenly so, I would ask it as well. This is why however. With the German Lucite flowers, as the vintage stock sells down and we are able to find the reproduction stock, we change our website as the stock turns from vintage to new.

Ever wonder about all of the colors? Ever order the same style # or color twice only to see the 2 beads next to each other and notice a slightly different dye lot? Many of the flowers, vintage & new, that we carry come to us in Crystal Matte and are dyed in house by one of our talented bead enhancers: Robyn Dutil or Ashley Bunting. These girls feverishly work on developing popular and trendy colors in an ever changing palette. And guess what? You too can dye or enhance these beads to your own color specifications. What a great way to customize your own jewelry line? (I foresee selling out of loads of Crystal Matte in the next week…). Now note: not all of our Lucite & plastic flowers are dyed in house. Some come to us in a full color spectrum. However in most cases, these are the contemporary beads.

Vintage Soft Plastic Flowers

Another breed of vintage flowers, these soft plastic pieces have a funky, kitschy, cool element. Unlike our German lucite flowers, these pieces were made in ca. 1960’s-80’s in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan and possess an edgier look in opaque colors and textural shapes. Priced a bit lower than their German counterparts, these beads are in fact more limited in that no one to my knowledge is reproducing them yet.

So enjoy these fun finds, both new & old, as much as we have. There are loads of inspiring ways to use Lucite flowers.



Here are a few…
Groovy Enamel Flower Brooch
Blue Belle Lucite Hoops
Daisy Days Lucite Necklace
Gumball Chic Necklace

And please, send us your ideas! We would love to start a Lucite flower gallery on BeadinPath.com to showcase what our friends who use them do with them!