Antique SVC Venetian Transparent Maroon #20 Seed Beads 14/0

Transparent Maroon #20 — Antique SVC Venetian Seed Beads, 14/0

At 14/0 the thread decides the design, so the size goes first. The hole sits in the 0.45–0.55mm range, which puts thread choice and the number of passes you can make ahead of every other consideration. Plan the thread before the design, and do not assume multiple passes through the same bead the way you would at 11/0.

The colour is a deep raspberry-wine, and it is transparent, which changes how it reads at volume. Light passes fully through, so colour compounds where beads overlap: a loose bead is a clear cool-leaning red, while a densely filled area drops toward dark plum and keeps flashing red at the edges and out of the perforations. At this size the beads sit closer together than they would at 10/0, which pushes a filled field darker still. Match at working density, not from a scatter on white paper.

Transparent is not interchangeable with lined or opaque. A colour lined maroon gets its depth from a lining inside clear glass and reads brighter at the surface; an opaque maroon stops light and sits even and heavy. This glass gets its depth from wall thickness and packing, which is also why intensity varies across the stock — inherent to period transparents rather than a defect. Uncirculated warehouse stock of this age carries the occasional off-colour bead, so order enough to sort from if you need a clean single-colour field, and expect dark specks in some perforations as normal kiln and annealing debris from period production.

Sizing and threading. SVC 14/0 runs 1.60–1.80mm with a hole in the 0.45–0.55mm range, roughly 20–23 beads to a strung inch, and strung counts for antique lots are estimates. Use a size 11–13 needle with 0.10–0.14mm thread — KO, One-G, Nymo OO or B. Antique holes are undocumented and vary lot to lot, and 13/0 and 14/0 nearly coincide as size windows in this stock, which is exactly why caliper measurement beats the card notation. Test-thread a sample before committing.

Small transparent darks like this are what period work used for shading and shadow lines, where an opaque of the same hue would flatten the transition. We do not expect to source this colorway again. Browse our full SVC reds inventory to compare against your reference material.

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