Featured How to tell black beads apart - is it Jet, French Jet, Obsidian or Onyx

Found this fabulous necklace at a charity shop recently and would love to know how to tell if it's any of the above, or something else altogether.
It's long enough to go around twice and still be a decent length, knotted and the beads are graduated up and down again.
The beads are faceted, cold, opaque and shiny.
Thanks in advance for any information, including possible age.

 

The soft edges to the facets and shape suggests glass.

 

Thank you Ce BCA, I didn't even consider glass - I wouldn't have thought it would be knotted.

 

Suggest molded glass rather than cut glass

A lot of nice, old glass bead necklaces are knotted.

 

Thank you Marie

 

Lets hope so - surely a poor soul that had the job of cutting them Itty Bitty facets on a tiny round glass orb would be residing in Hell.

 

Those look molded for sure. I wouldn't want to think about faceting glass. Eek.

 

Nice!
Here is a very useful article for identifying black materials in Victorian jewellery
https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/identify-black-materials-victorian-jewelry-149534

 

That is very useful and interesting Kyratango. Thank you so much.

 

Yes you did. French jet, which you mention in the title, is actually glass.

 

The best test for true jet is to see if it leaves a smear on unglazed ceramic. I'd agree these are nice old glass.

 

Oh, LoL, I expected French jet was jet from France - go figure!

 

Great thanks Ownedbybear

 

You're very welcome.