Antique SVC Venetian Opaline Luster Carnation Pink #4 Seed Beads 10/0

Opaline Luster Carnation Pink #4 — Antique SVC Venetian Seed Beads, 10/0

Carnation sets an expectation this glass does not meet, so deal with that first. This is a very pale blush with a cream cast, not the saturated pink that carnation suggests. In mass it reads almost as a warm off-white carrying a pink undertone, and the pink only asserts itself when the beads sit against a true white or a cool grey. If your reference piece needs a pink that announces itself at arm's length, this is the wrong material however well the undertone agrees.

Opaline and luster are doing two different jobs. The body glass is opaline — translucent rather than transparent, with a pearlescent, nacre-like sheen that lives at the surface rather than diffusing inside the bead the way greasy glass does. Over that sits a luster coating, which adds a second layer of shimmer and skipped the cut, so the perforations read distinctly warmer, in the peach-to-apricot range. At this size that hole colour is visible in a filled area: soft blush shot through with warm rings, not flat pink.

Lot character. Cast varies across uncirculated stock of this age — some beads sit creamier and warmer, others cooler and closer to white, and the surface sheen runs stronger on some than on others. Dark specks in the perforations are normal for this stock, kiln and annealing debris from period production, and they show more readily against pale glass than they would in a dark bead. Pre-sort for uniform-face or colour-critical work.

Sizing and threading. SVC 10/0 runs 2.40–2.70mm with a hole in the 0.70–0.80mm range, roughly 13–15 beads to a strung inch, worked with a size 10–12 needle and 0.10–0.18mm thread such as KO, One-G or Nymo B/D. Antique holes are undocumented and vary lot to lot, and SVC sizes overlap more than modern ones do — caliper the beads rather than trusting the card notation, and test-thread a sample first.

For restoration this is the pale pink that period bridal and mourning-adjacent beadwork actually used, where a modern opaque pink substitution reads immediately as new. We do not expect to source this colorway again. Browse our full SVC pinks inventory to compare against your reference material.

Uncirculated old stock, never strung for trade. Small lot, finite old stock.