Mike's desire to create glass beads based on archaeological finds was partly triggered by time spent in York over the past several years, which included several visits to the Yorkshire Museum and Gardens which houses a collection of finds from excavations in and around York itself.  Included in the museum collection are a number of glass beads, ranging from the Iron Age, Romano-British and on through the Viking era. Further research into finds from Britain, including the British Museum holdings and other museums across the country and various scholarly texts considered the best in the field of ancient British glass beads gave Mike the impetus he needed to work on producing glass beads with historic inspiration.  The result is the 'Mancunium' range of glass beads created for people who want to own a small piece of history in the making.  At present we have concentrated on the early part of British history, ranging from pre-Iron Age to the end of the Viking era.  There are many other beads to research but we felt it was best to keep to a narrower time range to begin so that we could provide the best information possible to those wishing to purchase modern beads with historic roots.

As a modern beadmaker, Mike Poole uses modern materials and equipment to produce his beads.  The equipment used has changed significantly over the past four thousand years but the techniques remain essentially the same, molten glass is wound around a mandrel, layered or decorated with other colours of molten glass, allowed to cool and then used in jewellery or other means of adornment or embellishment.  It is not possible for the beadmaker to exactly re-create the materials without a lot of specialist equipment, but modern soda-lime glass produced in such glassmaking centres as Venice, Germany and Britain are close enough to the original glass to be indistinguishable to the average person.  The techniques and beads themselves are created to be one artist's work, and would stand up against any other beadmaker whose work has been studied during our research.  Mike believes that each independent glass beadmaker, either historic or modern has an individual style, it is obvious in the beads in various collections that styles range from the extremely skilled to the barely capable, no two beadmakers will produce the same exact bead, each one will have at least subtle variation in decoration, shape, size or style.  Modern independent beadmakers pride themselves on their individual styles, it is very easy to view a selection of art glass beads from a dozen modern artists and be able to pick out each artists' style, and so it must have been for ancient beadmakers too.  So, the beads Mike produces are not exact copies of historic beads, instead they are his version of what he would have made were he alive in York in 1021 or Wilderspool in the 1st century AD.  There are a bewildering, fabulous, amazing array of beads to be inspired by, it is impossible to present even a fraction of them as modern handmade beads, so we have tried to work on a representative selection for the various time periods listed on this site and produce beads and information that will permit the interested buyer to make informed choices on what they want to own.

It is also important to discuss the ethics of both beadmaking and bead collecting.  Beadmaking exists today in various forms, there are the mass-produced beads from factories in countries where the workers are treated in an ethical fashion, examples being the Czech and Austrian glass and crystal industries that are regulated heavily by the EU.  The glass rods used in making all the beads from Tillerman Beads is sourced from such places as Venice, Germany, England and the US, all of which are produced under stringent conditions.  Modern artist-made lampwork beads are created with a sense of artistry and pride, they are annealed for durability, cleaned and sold as original handmade beads, generally one-of-a-kind beads or sets.  By buying modern versions of historic beads, you are also helping to curb the trade in illicit antiquities from such areas as the Middle East where so many of the beads found are taken from sites by artifact looters and sold on to the market with no record of time, place or any of the other valuable information that helps put beads in their historic context.  We have seen many, many beads of unusual type for sale online, but it is impossible to use them as reference materials as there is no way to authenticate the appearance of the beads or be sure they're even genuine, the antiquities faking industry is carried out on a massive scale.  In addition, there are thousands of beads held in private collections that may be unique in style or offer more information to the modern beadmaker but these beads are not available for viewing and so these styles again are lost to the modern beadmaker or collector.  It is a shame that one of the most common, popular and beautiful styles of art, prized by every culture, is not accessible to everyone due to the issues of antiquities theft and private ownership of such items. 

There is a second type of beadmaker and bead production.  This is usually found in places such as China or India, where the beads are indeed handmade but the conditions under which they are produced are generally not of a standard to provide worker protection, many times the beadmakers work at home and do piecework, producing beads for pence or less a bead, which are eventually sold in the European and American markets for prices ranging from several pounds a string to several pounds a bead.  These beads are usually not annealed, they are generally not cleaned of the bead release which remains in the bead holes as a whitish powdery dust.  They will more likely than not have sharp edges and as they are not annealed they are often very prone to cracking.  They are handmade as they are created by someone but usually in a factory or home, mass-produced, thousands of the same bead made at a time.  There is nothing wrong with mass-produced beads but there is a problem with the conditions under which the workers produce the beads, generally in sweatshop conditions or on occasion worse.  It is important that people purchasing beads are given the information on where their beads are made so they can again make informed choices on what to buy.  These beads will not have any research or historical information provided with them, they will be at best a second-choice option for the serious re-enactor.

Ok, enough preaching.