Vancouver Bead Stores

There are a number of Vancouver Bead Stores. They are also all of fairly high calibre, compared to the bead stores of other major Canadian cities. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that Vancouverites are willing to spend more money on handmade goods. There are more small jewellery artisans per capita in Vancouver than any other major metropolis.

One of my favourites is Country Beads, owned by my friend Susan Gill. It is managed by Danika, a super talented and wonderful gal, and helped run by an army of fantastic and bubbly jewellery designers. Sue is the creative business woman behind the scene all these years. She has a gift for colour and likes warm and inviting interiors. I like her display ideas. She's people oriented, well traveled, open minded, and the ideal person to own a Vancouver Bead Store. Sue has a great eye for trends and quality. She hand picks all of her stones and Country Beads has the best selection of Indian cut stones in Vancouver. They provide steep volume discounts to wholesale jewellery designers. The store is definitely worth a visit and they're working on an online store.

Kimdoly specializes in inexpensive Chinese stone beads. They have 2 locations, and exhibit at all the major bead shows in Vancouver. Their prices are competitive and they have a large selection of stone beads. The variety is not different from regular Chinese stone beads. They believe their customer base is more price conscious, and their selection of sterling silver components is almost non-existent. If you like their selection of stone beads, but you don't want to go elsewhere to buy your sterling silver, you need to speak to the owners to get them to bring it in.

Capilano Rock And Gem is located on the north shore. It is a direct competitor to Country Beads, but without the meticulous selection. They have a large selection of sterling wire, sheets and casting grains. They also have a good selection of gold filled wires. They have a fair amount of pearls, but not a lot of stone beads.

There are a couple of Beadworks locations. One of them is located in Granville Island. It is very pretty and a relaxed location to shop in. However, like all Beadworks locations, the selection is limited and the prices are strictly retail.

Beadsmart is located in Richmond, but since they draw many Vancouver clients, I consider them as one of the Vancouver Bead Stores. The owner Cindy is very generous and their prices are great. They have purportedly the lowest prices and largest colour selection of Swarovski crystals. Cindy's partner, Kareen, is a retired banker who is very talented and has a great eye for colour co-ordination. She holds beading and wire wrapping classes. They have some fine chains a small selection of good clasps. They carry a good selection of sterling and gold-filled wire in different gauges. You can negotiate for volume discount and many regular customers get little gifts without having to ask.

Many retail customers go to Fire Mountain Gems across the border to do their shopping. However, it has been said that the stone beads from Fire Mountain Gems is poor and they've had to switch back to buying locally. The minimums at Fire Mountain Gems is low, but again, unless you buy a significant amount, the duties and shipping will not make it cost effective.

Vancouver Bead Stores are sophisticated and prices are as price competitive as that of many major cities. Because there are many professional jewellery designers in the city, Vancouver Bead Stores are prompted to carry better selection and enable themselves to sell wholesale in order to compete.

To take a look at what Stones and Findings, a Canadian sterling silver wholesaler, can provide, click here!

Toronto Bead Stores

Toronto bead stores are many. They are dotted throughout Toronto and the surrounding suburbs. However, I actually think there is room for a few more bead stores that are specialized, catering to better quality and unique findings. The population of this city is sophisticated, well read and up to date with fashion. We have some very creative and talented citizens. And in many artistic industries, Toronto has produced some world class artists, from fashion to film, to fine arts. Although Toronto bead stores are numerous, and they're doing a good job, I've seen much better stores in other parts, where the population is smaller, and in my view, the where people are not necessarily more artistic. Toronto offers great opportunities for a brave and creative would be bead store owner.

There is a famous enclave of bead stores along Queen Street, west of Spadina. Arton Beads Craft is wonderful, packed full, price competitive and have been there for as long as Torontonians can remember. They're the first to be there and Alice, the owner, is very kind, highly educated, artistic and passionate about her work and her low prices, of course. Arton Beads Craft waited a few years for her neighbour's lease to expire and took over next door to open a new concept store. It carries semi-precious stones, sterling silver and cubic zirconia. Arton Beads Craft started out carrying inexpensive basemetal findings and buttons, with occasional crystals.

Across the street from her is the nemesis store, Bling Bling. It is a very spacious place by comparison, and they're rapidly moving up the competition by directly importing their own pearls and stones. Prices for these are low. There are a few more bead stores in that area with similar merchandise, with focus on lower prices. The Crystal Bead Shop, like it's name suggests, focuses on crystals. Fancy Gems and Accessories has some finished jewellery as well as components. They are situated along Queen Street within 2 blocks of one another.

The only downtown Toronto Bead Store in that enclave that is catering to a different market is The Beadery. I really like the decor of that store. It is packed with merchandise, much of which is imported from the Philippines and China. The presentation is different and a lot of thought has gone into merchandising it. The prices are a lot higher than the other stores, though I believe they offer 30% wholesale discount if you purchase over $500.

It is rumoured that The Sassy Bead Co has recently closed their Toronto store. The head office is in Ottawa and there are a few locations there. They focus on cheap and cheerful. They like to buy end lots from the basements of novelty and bead wholesalers in New York, things which have not seen the light of day for many years. Those beads are cheap, bought by the pound, but unique and no longer in production. They had done well for themselves for a long time on high margins. However, I think it takes more to be a successful when there is so much competition amongst Toronto Bead Stores.

The staff at Bead FX is wonderful. Their store front, located in Scarborough, is smaller than most of their competitors. However, they do most of their business online. They have a strong presence in Czech beads and seed beads. Their staff are artistic, with great colour sense, and all make jewellery. They have many classes and a special equipment for glass bead making classes.

The Bead Junction is located in the Junction part of Toronto, around Queen and Roncesvalles area. It is nicely kept and the ladies at the store hold many classes. They're very strong in seed beads. There are a few more Toronto Bead Stores that do largely online sales. They also exhibit at the Toronto Bead Oasis Show. It's a worthwhile venue to visit, however, to get a more complete flavour of what they offer, it is always best to visit the stores. If you don't see something you are looking for, it is very important to ask. They may not have thought about bringing it in because they believe they do not have a market for it. But if you ask, you might just get. Beading is a very interesting and flexible business. I have a strong feeling that we're just at the cusp of a great leap for Toronto Bead Stores.

Gold and Silver in the 21st Century Economy...

...and what it Means to the Accessories Industry

by: Damien Zielinski



Precious metals have always commanded the attention of both stock market traders and jewelry aficionados alike, but until recently the two have been mutually exclusive. As we bear witness to a continuing surge in the market value of gold and sterling silver and prices that are at an all-time high, it seems that exchanges normally confined to trading floors will be the topic of conversation at showrooms and boutiques… whether the jewelry community likes it or not.



Never insulated from concepts of money and riches, gold and silver have been symbols of wealth, prestige, and beauty since antiquity. Instantly recognizable and culturally transcendent, these precious metals seem to epitomize luxury. While it could be possible that the most beautiful minerals happen to be the most rare and expensive, the truth is that interest in precious metals is also caused, quite simply, by their scarcity: they are, by definition, precious in this world, and occur in limited quantity. If one should wear a gold chain around his neck, they are not only making a stylistic statement with the highly reflective and tantalizingly coloured element, but are also to some degree aligning their image with the kings, queens, pharaohs, and emperors who have been adorned by gold in the past. To wear gold is to say 'I can afford to wear gold.' However, the high market worth of pure gold only means so much when low karat alloys, plating, and gold vermeil enter the picture: one can look like royalty without necessarily footing a royal bill. With such innovations, it is difficult to assess whether or not gold still bears any meaningful imperial association with monarchs of old, but surely these impressions still linger, to some degree, in the subconscious of modern jewelry wearers, designers, and observers. The history and culture of the metal is simply so long and so rich that such connotations will always be ingrained in the collective mind.



Another complicating factor in the unfolding stories of gold and silver is that of their use as currency in the premodern era. With the establishment of Lydian mints in 700 BC, the precedent was set, and the association of silver with monetary value was inherited by countless civilizations. The words 'silver' and 'money' are synonymous in at least 14 different languages, and the contemporary stock exchange still uses gold as a benchmark litmus indicator for the market as a whole. Banks still carry gold bullion, and your grandparents probably have at least one silver dollar lying around somewhere. While it seems preposterous to actually wear money, no one is bothered by the time-honoured duality of gold and silver as fashion accessories and units of currency both. Yet, there is a kind of tension in this double nature: while the cultural appreciation of gold and silver has remained relatively unchanged, enjoying what seems to be permanent appreciation in the jewelry industry throughout transient fads and passing fashions, the market value of both metals is notoriously unstable.



Investors and traders are used to sitting on edge as numbers rise and fall, but there is less awareness of gold and silver's market worth for ground-level jewelry consumers. The reason for this is that global market-level fluctuations in value are not reflected in the prices of wholesale jewelry components at a rate that expresses the actual speed of market changes. In other words, while silver prices change daily, a jewelry designer may only buy silver components monthly. Something like gasoline, for example, is constantly priced based on market value, keeping the everyday consumer in touch with stock exchange realities, but precious metals have the effect of incremental increases and decreases that correspond with the rate of wholesale purchases. So, while wholesalers of components tend to buy silver and gold at prices directly dictated by market worth, a desire to remain competitive and shock repeat customers as little as possible causes more sporadic price increases than are actually representative of silver's true value at any given time.

As the bull market keeps rising, precious metals grow even more expensive, and wholesalers are unable to break even without raising prices. Having to shell out more for the same metal goodies may frustrate small businesses and amateur designers, and can come at some consternation if the market forces aren't understood. 'If silver and gold prices have always been changing, and the price hasn't significantly affected the consumer,' one might ask, 'why should prices go up so much now? And after all, couldn't market values go back down just as suddenly?'

It is always possible, and the stock exchange is naturally defined by unpredictability, but recent trends seem to suggest otherwise: since the spring of 2000, gold and silver have both more than doubled in worth, standing in contrast to a long period of relative stability since the last big spike in 1980. The central cause of the increase has been widely credited to a huge surge in demand associated with new and expanding markets in parts of the world that, previously, did not account for nearly as much jewelry consumption.


credit: http://www.palagems.com/gem_news_2007_v1.htm

India and China, especially, have recently witnessed a tremendous growth of the middle class, and a proportionate demand for things that such families crave, like travel, services, and luxury commodities. In attempting to explain the impact of this rising consumerist presence on the prices of gold and silver, some have pointed, for example, to gold's historic prominence in Chinese culture, and the resulting love of it that courses through the veins of Chinese people and transcends visual appeal. It is also said that Indian culture is even more reverent to precious metals, and that certain Indian ceremonies like weddings tend to spur gold purchase on such a large scale that stock market spikes can actually be mapped on a calendar. Whether or not investigations into localized histories and cultural stereotypes are even necessary, truthfully, is debatable at best. The simple reality is that enormous populations of jewelry wearers have exploded onto the scene, and their demand for gold and silver don't need any 'deeper' explanation. Statistics also show that demand for silver is actually going down in other fields, such as photography, which due to increasing digitization relies less and less on silver nitrate.

This rise in demand is occurring against the backdrop of an actual increase in the production of precious metals- 2005 saw, for example, an all time high in silver output. It has been recorded that 50% of all gold produced in history has been mined after 1960. Both of these figures demonstrate that increasing scarcity is not the issue; these things have never been more readily available. Almost all 'scrap' silver and gold is melted down and reused, so not only are we producing more, but we tend to lose almost none. With such extraordinary abundance, it seems as though prices should be going down. Unfortunately, the wealth in supply is met by an even greater presence of global demand, and therein lies the rub.

There is just no way around the fact that everyone loves to adorn themselves with gold and silver, and with record-breaking demographic transitions, millions more are suddenly able to afford it. The results are a stubborn bull market offering no sign of relent, and sweeping price changes that can no longer sit under the radar of designers and artists who would rather focus on fashion trends than those of the stock market.