African and Asian Trade Beads
P.O. Box 251 Drayton Norwich NR8 6DZ England

March 2010

Please note that I shall be travelling and bead hunting in West Africa during the month of March. Although it may take more than the usual time for me to answer them, depending on where I am, all order enquiries will be acknowledged whilst I am in Africa and customers will be contacted with full details on my return to the UK in early April.

Orders for any items required for delivery before my departure must be confirmed and payment made before the 28th February.

My apologies for the delays and thanks in advance for your patience, but without these trips, I cannot personally attempt to find rare and special items to offer you.

27^th January 2010

The exciting new finds which I returned with from my recent trip to The Gambia, Sénégal and Mali during November and December 2009, have been published throughout our African Website's 700+ pages. Apologies for the length of time it has taken to process the recent finds, but with a large backlog of orders to fulfil from the length of time I was away, coupled with Christmas and New Year in the UK's Arctic conditions ( the worst in 30 years ) it has taken longer than normal to catch up. My thanks for the patience of all those who waited to buy their items.

Weather conditions had improved from what had been a very heavy Summer rainy season, the farmers were happy with their green fields of growing crops and for once the temperatures … especially in central Mali … were tolerably in the mid 30's instead of upper 40's C. However, travelling conditions were in general very overcrowded and hence protracted, with many people travelling vast distances to be home with their families for Tobaski, which is the Muslim equivalent of the Christian Christmas celebrations in its importance.

Customs officials were more eagerly than normal checking luggage for goods being transported to neighbouring country's markets for the pre-Tobaski selling bonanzas … and racking up their 'import duty charges' to suit. We even had to have our transport 'escorted' through an area of Sénégal by armed military, on the bus journey from Bamako to Dakar, due to the possibility of bandits on the road, evidently also intent on sharing in the 'grab-fest' at this time of year.

Such was the bus company's enthusiasm for gaining as much profit as possible on this, the last bus before Tobaski Day from Mali to Dakar, that not only were there twice the normal amount of passengers crammed into every available space, but the driver did not have his usual co-driver. He was expected to drive non-stop ( apart from the many customs halts and police checks ) all the way to Dakar, a journey of 30 or so hours in total !! Just before Tambakunda, 18 hours into the journey and in the early hours of the morning, he began falling asleep at the wheel. Primarily a Bambara speaker, non of the mainly Sénégalese passengers clustered around him could or had been chatting to him … and mostly asleep, hadn't seemed to notice our much slower pace and the fact that we were weaving all over the road.

Luckily, still awake and conscious of the fact that this particular stretch of road was nearly my undoing in similar circumstances in a bush taxi a few years back …
I managed to wake him long enough to reach Tambakunda. Once safely there, happily the other passengers on the bus realised what had been happening and supported me … the only Toubab on the bus … in insisting that the driver have a couple of hours sleep before we safely continued our journey.

This was only one incident during a 3 week journey in a variety of situations, always interesting but sometimes very arduous, in an effort to locate suitable items to offer on ATB. Although the number of good condition antique and ancient trade beads on offer in West Africa has been declining over the years, this time, it was really noticeable how few good beads were available. Our loyal dealer friends throughout West Africa had been notified of the types we were looking for, well in advance of our arrival and had tried their best to find them, but sadly most of their stocks were very limited.

Many of our antique Kiffa and ancient Morfia enthusiasts have been waiting for us to find more specimens. We did find a few acceptable Kiffa but there were no Morfia on offer anywhere. Out of the other very limited numbers of original production Kiffa that we did see, 95% of them were either badly damaged or had been clumsily repaired … and were on sale at prices equal to those previously paid for good condition beads. Unless specifically requested to do so, we will not buy repaired of damaged Kiffa, but will again be trying to find good specimens of both of these exclusive and now very elusive beads on our next Springtime trip.

On the more successful front we did find many good Stone items, amongst which are some excellent quality Amazonite beads offered in Singles and Collections.

Our Millefiore and Venetian collections have had many additions, along with a superb selection of rare Dutch Pentagonals, which we were very lucky to find.

Amongst the Collectors Specials and in our African and Ancient sections you will find rarely seen items including some lovely Hebron, first quality Nila and additional collections of African Silver.

In our Chevron section there are more unusual single beads and some really superb specimen 6 layer examples.

More new additions can be found by clicking the icons on our Product Index Page and by looking for theicons on our hub pages. Many categories have had previously sold items replaced with similar items, so don't forget to check for your favourite types which you may have missed, but might again be available to you.

We continue to help to support many families with our long term bead-buying friendships and your purchases from ATB and our purchases from our suppliers, do provide a considerable amount of direct help to many people, in many more ways than you may imagine. Probably even more importantly nowadays, as many of the 'more developed' nations are too busy trying to solve their own financial problems to remember their promises of aid and assistance for Africa.

I Wish you all the Very Best and look forward to hearing from you.

David Nevill
African and Asian Trade Beads