Origin — Heartwood of the ebony tree, traded through Anatolian and Levantine wood markets.

Character — Jet black with a faint grey striping. Dense, hard, and cool to the touch with a very fine, almost closed grain.

In the workshop — Turned and polished to a mirror-dark finish that shows fingerprints readily — a patina the piece earns rather than keeps.

How to tell: Darker and finer-grained than kuka, and without kuka's scent. Lighter than kuka on the same volume.

Origin — Indian rosewood (Pterocarpus dalbergioides), selected board by board for figure rather than colour.

Character — Deep red-brown crossed by darker streaks. Oily to the touch, with a strong rose-like scent when freshly cut that mellows over time.

In the workshop — Turned while still slightly green, then rested before finishing, so the piece settles instead of cracking. Strung on genuine silk.

How to tell: Red-brown with dark veining and a soft rose scent. Markedly lighter than kuka or ebony for the same bead size.

Origin — Turkish rosewood, the national hardwood of Anatolia, from managed forest in the western provinces.

Character — Warm red-brown, close-grained, with a faint aromatic quality. A traditional choice for Turkish prayer beads.

In the workshop — Stabilised and turned, then hand-finished. Its even grain takes a very high polish without the figure of Indian rosewood.

How to tell: Warmer and more uniform in colour than Indian rosewood, and a little lighter.

Origin — Resinous heartwood from Aquilaria and Gyrinops trees, sourced from South-East Asia through the traditional oud trade.

Character — Dark, heavy, and unmistakably smoky-resinous. Older stock is nearly black and dense with resin; younger wood is pale and much lighter.

In the workshop — Resin-rich stock is turned with the resin still in the wood, which keeps the surface alive. We avoid stabilising away the resin, because the resin is the material.

How to tell: Density varies enormously with resin load — from 0.60 to over 1.0. Smell it: resinous and smoky, not woody.

Origin — Santalum album from established plantations in Mysore and Tamil Nadu, where sustainable harvest is now practised.

Character — Pale golden brown, fine-grained, with a long-lasting sweet and creamy scent that is still strong after decades.

In the workshop — Turned green and rested, because sandalwood moves with humidity and an impatient finish will check. Very little is wasted.

How to tell: Aromatic where oud is resinous: sweet and creamy rather than smoky. Sits around 0.9 g/cm³.

Origin — Boxwood from Anatolia and the Near East, including the denser Mugla stock prized by Turkish turners.

Character — Pale yellow to warm honey, with an extremely fine, almost featureless grain that takes a warm, even polish.

In the workshop — Boxwood cuts beautifully and takes a high polish. Because it is so uniform, we leave the turning marks visible rather than polishing it away.

How to tell: The grain is almost featureless and the colour uniform. Both density and grain separate it from similarly pale woods.

Origin — Mediterranean olive wood, a by-product of the olive harvest rather than a dedicated timber crop.

Character — Pale cream ground crossed by dark wandering grain. Warm and slightly oily, with a faint fruity scent.

In the workshop — Turned and finished lightly to keep the contrast in the grain readable. Every piece's figure is unique.

How to tell: Pale ground with dramatic dark wandering veins — a grain pattern not shared by any other common tesbih wood.

Origin — European and Anatolian walnut, mostly from orchard and offcut timber.

Character — Mid-brown with darker feathering. Soft, light and warm in the hand; among the lightest woods we turn.

In the workshop — Easy to turn and forgiving, so most of our shaped imames and larger forms are walnut. Finished with oil rather than polish.

How to tell: Clearly light: around 0.65 g/cm³. Any bead that sinks in water is not walnut.

Origin — Antep fıstığı (pistachio) wood, a traditional Anatolian tesbih timber, available in small and declining volumes.

Character — Pale golden with a very fine, tight grain. Light, dry, and quietly warm in colour.

In the workshop — Turned in small batches as the stock allows. The fine grain holds a polish without becoming glossy.

How to tell: Pale golden and fine-grained, sitting between walnut and maple in density — but with a distinctly warmer colour than either.

Origin — Chestnut from Anatolian coppice woodland, mostly small roundwood from managed cutting.

Character — Pale brown with a coarse, open, clearly visible grain. Soft and light, with a slightly fibrous feel.

In the workshop — Turned with care because the open grain tears easily. Kept matte — polish would fill the pores and hide what it is.

How to tell: Coarse open grain and a very light weight, around 0.6 g/cm³. Unmistakably softer than kuka or ebony.

Origin — Maple from European and Anatolian sources, selected pale for the absence of strong figure.

Character — Pale cream with a very tight grain and a faint pink cast. Light, hard for its weight, and visually quiet.

In the workshop — Turned to clean profiles that read well against the darker woods. A background wood — chosen to let the material speak.

How to tell: Pale, tight-grained and light, around 0.7 g/cm³. Distinguished from boxwood by being lighter and more open.

Origin — Ardıç (juniper) from Anatolian highlands, traditionally the local answer to sandalwood.

Character — Pale with reddish streaks and a strong aromatic scent. Slightly oily, and warmer to the touch than it looks.

In the workshop — Turned green and dried slowly so the aromatic oils do not crack the surface. The scent is the point of the material.

How to tell: Aromatic and pale. It smells like juniper, not like rosewood or sandalwood — the scent is the fastest way to tell them apart.

Origin — Boxwood from the Mugla region in south-west Turkey, the densest boxwood available to us.

Character — Warmer and more golden than European boxwood, with a faint olive undertone. Noticeably heavier than it looks.

In the workshop — Turned and highly polished, where it takes a warm glow rather than a hard shine. Reserved for pieces that should feel substantial.

How to tell: Denser than European boxwood — just over 1.0 g/cm³ — and a warmer, more golden colour.

Origin — Coconut shell from South-East Asian plantations, cut from the end of the husk.

Character — Warm brown with the fibrous husk structure still legible in cross-section. Light for its size, with a satin rather than glossy polish.

In the workshop — Cut and turned, then finished to keep the fibrous texture visible. Each piece keeps some of the shell's natural irregularity.

How to tell: A recognisable fibrous internal structure visible on any cut face. Around 1.3 g/cm³ — heavier than wood, lighter than stone.

Origin — Baltic amber, weathered on the shores of the Baltic, alongside amber from other geological deposits.

Character — Warm honey to cognac and cherry, translucent. Faintly charged by friction, and it develops a rich patina rather than dulling.

In the workshop — Polished but never over-polished — the aim is to keep the inner glow rather than a surface shine. Finished and strung in its natural weight.

How to tell: Denser than fresh water and sinks there, but floats in saturated salt water.

Origin — Osmanlı miskevi — the harder, more aromatic amber from the Ottoman tradition, favoured for its dense scent and colour depth.

Character — Deeper and more opaque than ordinary amber, with a strong musky warmth that survives handling. Cognac to dark cherry.

In the workshop — Worked like amber but finished to a slightly deeper polish, which holds the colour and the scent together.

How to tell: Denser than amber (around 1.10 g/cm³) and markedly more aromatic. Amber is lighter and clearer.

Origin — Frankincense resin, tapped from Boswellia trees in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian peninsula.

Character — Pale amber to milky white, semi-transparent, and distinctly brittle. Faintly resinous with a clean, pine-bark scent.

In the workshop — Turned carefully — it chips rather than cuts. Modern Frankincense beads are usually stabilised or cast, which softens the brittleness.

How to tell: Much paler and more translucent than amber, and very brittle. Reads as a soft resin, not a fossil.

Origin — Pine rosin, the simplest resin of all — traditionally the base for strung and glued bead work.

Character — Pale yellow, sometimes dyed, with a strong pine scent and a warm glow. Very light and brittle.

In the workshop — Rarely turned as a solid bead; more often used as a strung or moulded element where lightness matters.

How to tell: A dyed resin with a pine scent and a much lighter colour than amber. Easily confused with poor amber at first glance.

Origin — Afghan Badakhshan, the historic source of the world's lapis for several thousand years.

Character — Deep ultramarine with white calcite veining and scattered golden pyrite flecks. Opaque, dense, and cold.

In the workshop — Each bead is selected individually for colour balance, then drilled and finished to bring the pyrite out without over-polishing the calcite.

How to tell: Look for the combination of deep blue lazurite, white calcite *and* gold pyrite in the same piece. Sinks hard, around 2.8 g/cm³.

Origin — Persian and Central Asian turquoise from the Neyshabur and Nishap districts.

Character — Sky blue to greenish, with brown or black matrix running through it. Waxy rather than glassy, and it takes a skin over decades.

In the workshop — Kept in its natural matrix wherever the piece allows, because the host rock is part of the material's story. Waxed, never lacquered.

How to tell: Waxy rather than glassy, and it takes a skin with age. Turquoise itself is not magnetic — a stone that is drawn to a magnet has been altered or contains other minerals, which is a warning sign.

Origin — Banded chalcedony from Mexico, Brazil and Turkey, drawn as slabs and turned as beads.

Character — Layered bands of cream, amber and brown. Translucent at the edges when polished thin.

In the workshop — Polished to a high shine that reveals the banding. Band alignment is chosen so each bead reads across the set.

How to tell: Distinct parallel banding. Softer and more patterned than agate, which has finer, more diffuse bands.

Origin — Nephrite and jadeite from Myanmar, Guatemala and Xinjiang.

Character — Hard, waxy and cool. Colour ranges from white through apple green to the deep imperial green that carries the highest value.

In the workshop — Polished to a soft waxy lustre rather than a hard gloss, which is how jade is traditionally finished.

How to tell: The toughest material here — a steel point will not scratch it. Sinks hard, around 3.0–3.35 g/cm³.

Origin — Agate from Brazil, Uruguay, Turkey and India, largely as a by-product of agate and amethyst mining.

Character — Banded chalcedony in a wide range of colours, translucent when thin, and cool with a fine even texture.

In the workshop — Turned and polished to a glassy finish. The banding is aligned deliberately across each piece.

How to tell: Fine, diffuse banding and translucency at the edge. A dyed or heated agate is identified by the colour sitting in the outer band only.

Origin — Common agate treated with dye and heat to produce a stable turquoise colour.

Character — Bright, even blue-green. The colour is convincing at arm's length and unmistakably wrong under a loupe.

In the workshop — Sold as turquoise far more often than as agate. We list it accurately and price it as what it is.

How to tell: The dye concentrates in the outer band and leaves the interior white. Genuine turquoise takes the colour throughout.

Origin — Carnelian from Brazil, India and Uruguay; a large share of what is sold today is dyed.

Character — Warm orange to deep red, translucent, with a fine even texture.

In the workshop — Turned and polished. Dyed and undyed stock is distinguished and labelled separately.

How to tell: Colour concentrated toward the outside indicates dyeing. Undyed carnelian grades from pale to deep naturally.

Origin — Volcanic glass, with sources including Anatolia, Armenia, Mexico and Oregon.

Character — Mirror black, occasionally with a faint brown sheen or a grey banding. Glassy, hard and very sharp-edged when fractured.

In the workshop — Polished to a genuine mirror. Because of the conchoidal fracture it is polished, never cut into profiles that would chip.

How to tell: Amorphous glass — it fractures conchoidally, has no crystal structure, and shows a glassy rather than waxy lustre.

Origin — Quartz in its rock-crystal, smoky and rose varieties, from Brazil, Madagascar and Turkey.

Character — Clear to pale coloured, brilliant and hard. Smoky quartz ranges from champagne to near-black; rose quartz is a uniform milky pink.

In the workshop — Cut or turned then polished to full brilliance. Quartz takes a sharper edge than any other soft-bead material here.

How to tell: Scratch-resistant — a steel point will not mark it, which rules out amber, horn, bone and every plastic in a single test.

Origin — Amethyst from Uruguay, Brazil and Turkey. Good material shows a strong colour gradient.

Character — Purple with paler, translucent tips. Harder and more brilliant than the chalcedonies it is often confused with.

In the workshop — Cut or turned and polished. The colour gradient is oriented deliberately in larger pieces.

How to tell: Amethyst is quartz — it is scratch-resistant, which separates it from the dyed glass imitations sold under the same name.

Origin — Marble from Turkish and Mediterranean quarries, a by-product of larger architectural and sculptural stone.

Character — Opaque, fine-grained, cool to the touch, with soft veining. Heavier than it looks in the hand.

In the workshop — Turned and polished. Marble is soft enough to work quickly and takes an edge beautifully, but chips on impact.

How to tell: Around 2.7–2.85 g/cm³ — noticeably heavy for a bead. Opaque, cool, and does not scratch with a steel point.

Origin — Magnetite from Anatolian and Scandinavian sources, more often a mineral specimen than a bead material.

Character — Black to grey, opaque, with a metallic grey streak. Cold and very heavy — heavier than any other stone here by a wide margin.

In the workshop — Rarely turned as a bead, but occasionally set as a single focal piece. Takes a strong polish.

How to tell: Strongly magnetic and around 5.0 g/cm³. No other material in this catalogue is both that heavy and magnetic.

Origin — Unclassified stone — a placeholder for material we have not yet pinned down.

Character — Listed here only so the bead has a home in the catalogue while identification is still running.

In the workshop — No working is done on an unidentified stone. It is measured and tested before anything is cut.

How to tell: Start with density, then the water and salt-water test. Unidentified material is never sold as a named stone.

Origin — The fruit stone of Attalea funifera, a tropical palm. Left to age before it is worked, and the colour deepens over the years.

Character — Hard and close-grained. Pale cream when young, deepening to a rich brown with age.

In the workshop — Turned on our own lathe, then finished in several polishing stages until the surface takes a soft, even light.

How to tell: Look for the palm-stone grain: a fine, slightly fibrous structure that is quite unlike a wood grain, and the way the colour deepens with age.

Origin — Nacre from pearl oysters and abalone, sourced as shell offcuts from European and Asian producers.

Character — Iridescent, with shifting colour bands that move as the piece turns. You can see the layered structure on any cut face.

In the workshop — Cut and polished to a brilliant, shifting surface. The iridescence is the whole point — it is never filled or coated.

How to tell: It looks like a shell, not a bead material. Obvious on a cut face, where the layers are visible.

Origin — Mediterranean coral, traditionally from the western basin and now largely from managed Indo-Pacific sources.

Character — Pale pink to deep red, opaque, with a very fine porous texture visible where it has been cut.

In the workshop — Turned and polished to a soft satin. The porosity shows as a matte quality no coating quite hides.

How to tell: Fine porous texture and a matte surface. Note that coral is protected and its provenance matters.

Origin — Elephant ivory — dentine, a calcium-phosphate material listed under CITES.

Character — Warm cream with fine cross-hatched Schreger lines, and a slightly yellowed surface that darkens with age.

In the workshop — Hand-worked only, to existing legal stock. The Schreger lines are the reason it must be declared honestly.

How to tell: Sinks at about 1.85 g/cm³ and shows Schreger lines under a loupe. Acetone does not affect it — that is the difference from celluloid, which does dissolve.

Origin — Bone, principally bovine, from the food and bone-meal industries.

Character — Opaque off-white with visible grain and darker marrow streaks. Warm to the touch and porous on a cut face.

In the workshop — Cut and finished to a smooth matte. Bone is worked for its grain rather than to imitate ivory.

How to tell: Porous and grainy on a cut face, against ivory's dense, smooth Schreger lines. Similar density, about 1.85 g/cm³.

Origin — Water buffalo horn, a by-product of buffalo dairying across Anatolia and South-East Asia.

Character — Translucent brown to black, with dark banding running along the horn. Uniquely warm and light for its hardness.

In the workshop — Turned and polished. Heat is used to flatten and straighten the form — horn responds to it where wood would crack.

How to tell: Uniquely light for something this hard (around 1.2 g/cm³) and translucent at the edges. Curls under a warm needle — the definitive test, and a destructive one.

Origin — Tortoiseshell from the hawksbill turtle. A keratin layer, listed under CITES.

Character — Mottled dark brown and amber blotches over a translucent base. The pattern is unique to each piece.

In the workshop — Cut and polished to a deep glow. Every piece is different and none of them repeat.

How to tell: The mottled blotching is distinctive and cannot be manufactured in genuine tortoiseshell. Density around 1.3 g/cm³.

Origin — Pressed wool felt, made from sheep's wool — the traditional imame material in Ottoman tesbih.

Character — Soft, matte and fibrous, with no grain at all. Extremely light in the hand and warm against the skin.

In the workshop — Cut and shaped rather than turned. Felt cannot be lathe-turned, so every imame is cut by hand.

How to tell: By far the lightest material here — around 0.3 g/cm³, and roughly a third of an amber bead. Fibrous when scratched.

Origin — Cured hide, vegetable-tanned where possible for the deeper, warmer colour.

Character — Brown with a clear grain pattern and a fibrous cut edge. Supple and warm.

In the workshop — Cut and stitched, then finished. Used for covers, tassels and the outer case rather than for beads.

How to tell: Grain pattern and a fibrous cut edge. Around 0.9–1.4 depending on thickness and tanning.

Origin — Catalin is an early phenol-formaldehyde plastic, produced from the 1930s to the 1950s — the golden age of coloured cast resin.

Character — Translucent with a swirling, marbled colour that runs through the material rather than sitting on the surface. Warm and light for its hardness.

In the workshop — Existing vintage pieces are cleaned and re-finished, never re-formed. The marbling is the reason to keep it intact.

How to tell: The marbled swirl is the giveaway. Density around 1.32–1.42 g/cm³, which separates it from amber at 1.05–1.12.

Origin — Bakelite is phenol-formaldehyde, patented in 1907 and still manufactured today — which is exactly why it is so often passed off as catalin.

Character — Dark, opaque and dense, with a fine rather than marbled texture. Warm to the touch and slightly waxy.

In the workshop — Turned and polished for older mechanical use. Modern urea-formaldehyde copies exist and are materially different.

How to tell: Opaque and uniformly coloured, where catalin is translucent and marbled. Around 1.36–1.42 g/cm³.

Origin — Nitrocellulose, developed in the 1860s and used for everything from billiard balls to imitation ivory — and, notoriously, highly flammable.

Character — Warm, amber-toned, and very light. Tends to yellow with age and can develop a characteristic acrid smell.

In the workshop — We do not turn new celluloid. Existing pieces are handled with care and kept away from heat and light.

How to tell: The definitive test is acetone: celluloid dissolves and goes tacky. Bakelite, catalin and acrylic all survive it untouched.

Origin — PMMA (Plexiglas), the modern acrylic now used in most transparent bead work.

Character — Water-clear, bright and light. Shows fine tool marks readily and has slightly soft edges where it has been drilled.

In the workshop — Turned and polished to a clean bright finish. By far the easiest material here to work to a high standard.

How to tell: Scratches easily under a fingernail — amber, horn, bone and the older plastics all resist that. Around 1.18 g/cm³.

Origin — Modern clear epoxy resin, most often used as a stabiliser or cast around a real inclusion rather than as a material in its own right.

Character — Glass-clear, hard, and often slightly yellowed. Frequently hides genuine amber or stone inside it.

In the workshop — Cast and finished. We always disclose the inclusion, because a clear epoxy bead is almost never just epoxy.

How to tell: Glass-clear and slightly yellow, with no grain. Check for an inclusion under a loupe before anything else.

Origin — Unclassified plastic — a placeholder for material we have not yet identified.

Character — Listed so the bead has a home in the catalogue while identification is running.

In the workshop — No working is done on unidentified plastic. Density and the acetone test come first.

How to tell: Density narrows the family, then acetone separates celluloid from everything else. Never sold as a named material.

Origin — Sterling silver, 925, from European refiners — used for imames, caps and fittings.

Character — Bright white when polished, with a fine grey tarnish that returns with handling. Very heavy for its size.

In the workshop — Cast and hand-finished in the workshop, then set with the beads. Marks are applied after finishing.

How to tell: Around 10.5 g/cm³ — nearly ten times a stone. Nothing else in the catalogue is this heavy.

Origin — Brass, a copper-zinc alloy, a common metal in traditional tesbih fittings.

Character — Warm yellow, slightly softer and more matte than silver, and it dulls rather than tarnishes black.

In the workshop — Turned and polished. Brass is the standard for imames where silver would be too costly.

How to tell: Yellow and non-magnetic, around 8.4–8.7 g/cm³. Warmer in colour than silver, lighter than bronze.

Origin — Bronze, a copper-tin alloy, used for fittings.

Character — Warmer and browner than brass, with a slightly duller surface that takes a beautiful dark patina.

In the workshop — Cast and finished, then allowed to patina naturally rather than being kept bright.

How to tell: Browner and heavier than brass, around 8.7–8.9 g/cm³. Non-magnetic.

Origin — Wrought iron, used for rustic and deliberately rough-finished fittings.

Character — Dark grey-black, often with a visible forge texture and a genuine rust patina that develops over time.

In the workshop — Forged and finished to leave the working marks visible. The texture is the point.

How to tell: Strongly magnetic and around 7.8 g/cm³ — lighter than brass, and the only magnetic metal of those listed.

Origin — Aluminium, used for light modern fittings and caps.

Character — Bright silvery-white but noticeably duller than silver, and it bends where silver would hold.

In the workshop — Anodised in a range of colours, which is how most aluminium fittings are finished.

How to tell: Light for a metal at around 2.7 g/cm³ — about a quarter the weight of silver at the same size. Non-magnetic, bends easily.

Origin — Pure copper, used for a warm, traditional finish on some fittings.

Character — Bright orange-brown when clean, darkening quickly to a deep brown-green patina. Easily scratched.

In the workshop — Kept bright where wanted, or allowed to patina where that suits the piece.

How to tell: The warmest and heaviest of the common non-precious metals, around 8.9–8.96 g/cm³. Distinctly orange when clean.