Czech Beads encompass a wide range of versatile styles still used in modern jewelry making. With their exuberant colors and chunky aesthetics, Bohemian Colodonte Beads are particularly popular among contemporary artisans, whom often use them as accents or spacers for larger focal beads. Imbued with powerful magical and healing properties, Fulani Funeral Beads still play a prominent part in the rituals and ceremonies of Ghanaian tribespeople – many of whom believe that these beads will aid their loved ones financially in the afterlife. Second to Venice, Old Bohemia was one of the world's leading countries for mass glass bead manufacturing during the trans-Mediterranean trading era. Czech Beads collectively define a wide range of bead styles produced by glasshouses in Czechoslovakia between the 15th and 19th Centuries. Unlike the elaborate styles produced by experimental glass-blowers in Venice, Czech Trade Beads were far simpler in style – often replications of the stone and African snake beads worn as amulets by the Yoruba people of Nigeria. Czech Beads have a varied history, and one which was largely impacted by the Industrial Revolution of the 19th Century. Glass-making in North Bohemia's started out as a cottage industry, but with the introduction of machine pressing techniques, rapidly transformed into a mass production industry that would eventually rival that of Venice. New techniques allowed for greater uniformity when producing African replicas, and because most factories used molds, there was greater control over placement of the threading hole. It's for this reason that many Czech Snake Beads produced prior to the 19th Century are significantly more expensive than their modern day counterparts.