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You Can Own
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A few minutes after she sat down at the counter in the drugstore, the woman next to her turned and said, "I beg your pardon. But I've been admiring that neckpiece you're wearing. Would you mind telling me where you got it? And what do you call it?"

"It's a medallion," Mrs. Mintz answered. "I made it. Working with beads is my hobby."

"Do you have more and would you sell them?"

Mrs. Mintz said she had lots more and she guessed she would sell them. She'd never thought about it. She just loved to work with beads and anything she. ever made, she gave away to friends. She was even a little ashamed as she laughed and said, "I actually have more than I know what to do with. But making them is so fascinating, I just can't seem to stop. I feel it's somewhat of a challenge to my ingenuity to make each one of them on the same general idea, but each one different from the other."

Over a cup of coffee, Mrs. Mintz promised to take some of her medallions to the cleaning shop where the woman worked and let her choose the one she wanted.

Later, she realized neither of them had mentioned price. Mrs. Mintz didn't know just what to ask for them. These first ones were very elaborate. Every square millimeter of space was covered with beads and it took her almost two hours to make each one. She figured the materials used and the time consumed in making them, and arrived at a price of $4.50 each.

THE NEXT day Mrs. Mintz went to the cleaning shop and took a large box full of her work. As she was showing the medallions, a young man came in. He looked at them and asked if they were for sale. Mrs. Mintz said, yes, she was selling them. They were $4.50 each. He wanted to know how many she had.

She didn't know, but counted them and found she had eighty-five.

"Would you sell all of them?" he asked.

Mrs. Mintz gasped and said she thought she'd like to keep ten. (Why, she wanted to keep ten, she doesn't know. She certainly didn't need any for a pattern.)

"I'll go to the bank and be back with the money," the young man told her. "You wait here."

She didn't ask his name, or what he wanted with so many medallions. She was too stunned to ask him anything. And she was pretty certain she would never see him again.

But in fifteen minutes he was back and Mrs. Mintz floated home with over $300 in her hand.

"A few days later," Mrs. Mintz relates, "I questioned the woman in the cleaning shop. She didn't know him and said he didn't have his work done there. We don't even know why he came in the shop. So I suppose his identity will always remain a mystery.

"But for weeks, every time the telephone rang, I was positive someone was calling to tell me he had escaped his keeper and would I please return the money."

THAT INCIDENT gave Mrs. Mintz an idea. Why didn't she really try to sell her medallions? They were different. She knew that. And she thought she could make a larger quantity of them if she didn't take them quite so elaborate. She knew they would still be lovely and effective even if she didn't use as many beads.

For by now, Mrs. Mintz knew beadwork. Four years ago she had never sewed a sequin to anything in her life. It all started as she watched a friend sew them on a scarf. The scarf was so lovely Mrs. Mintz wanted to know how to put the sequins on.

Her friend showed her and she made a scarf. It turned out so well and she had so much fun with the sequins, she started making other things. She embroidered scarves with intricate bead designs, made earrings and bracelets of beads and beautiful jeweled crests to pin or sew on a dress or suit.

When she talked over her idea of selling the medallions with her husband and 20-year-old son, they weren't very enthusiastic.

They joked about the "bead room," the room upstairs in their spacious home that Mrs. Mintz had set aside for her hobby room, and that was always packed and crammed with beads of all kinds, sizes and descriptions.

Her husband told her it wouldn't all be as easy as her first sale. Mrs. Mintz said she knew that, but she thought she'd try selling them. And as she still wanted to keep it on a hobby basis, she decided to try exclusive stores only.

IN THE Beverly-Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, there is a small, very select shop called Allerdale's. Mrs. Mintz took a dozen medallions and went to see the owner. When she left she had sold the dozen and had an order for more.

Next she went to the I. Magnin store on fashionable Wilshire Boulevard. She was going to try to place them in the sports department. The buyer didn't think they would sell, so turned her down.

As she was leaving, the buyer for the accessory department came into the room. She looked at the colorful pieces and thought they might sell in her department. Mrs. Mintz told her she would sell her a dozen wholesale for $30 and if they sold, she would furnish more. If not, they would forget the whole thing.

They sold. And for $4.95 each.

Women found they added just the right, smart touch to a blouse or were equally effective as a neck ornament with a low cut dress.

When the medallions were well established in the I. Magnin Wilshire store, Mrs. Mintz was able to place them in the Beverly Hills and Pasadena Magnin stores.

In three months she made over $1,300.

Then she called on a buyer for Marshall Field who had an office in Los Angeles and arranged to send two dozen to Chicago for a trial.

Since August of 1950, she has had her medallions selling in the three I. Magnin stores, Marshall Field's, Halle Bros., in Cleveland, Frederick & Nelson in Seattle and Meyer and Frank in Portland.

MRS. MINTZ doesn't know exactly when the idea for the medallions first occurred to her. She was trying to find something different to go with a new blouse, went to work and the medallions were the result. This was a year and a half ago. She made them for six months before she ever thought of selling any.

She has enough beads to last her a lifetime, but can't resist buying more. She loves to prowl through secondhand stores and buys all of her beads there.

She buys old beaded bags for 50 cents, broken strands of beads, old beaded dresses, anything that has beads. Not long ago she bought a box, for 65 cents, that contained yards and yards of material and was covered with beads. When she got it home, she discovered she had bought a pair of old fashioned portieres that were at least fifty years old.

The first thing she does is wash and sterilize the beads thoroughly.

"You'd be surprised at what soap and water will do for old beads," she says.

"I have found beads that look as if they can never be used. But a good scrubbing will make them sparkling and beautiful again."

THE FIRST step in making a medallion is cutting the felt, which Mrs. Mintz uses as a backing. She buys felt in all different colors in lengths of one-quarter yard. She can get thirty full medallions from that much material.

The felt is cut in rounds. For awhile she cut the rounds by hand, but now has an arch punch which cuts them faster and more professionally.

She takes a round of felt that is 1⁵/8 inches in circumference and sews a smaller round of 1 inch, and in a different color, to the center of the larger round. Then she sews in her center bead. It may be a pearl, or it may be a colored bead that is oval or oblong.

She uses anything she wants for the center bead and works from there. For example, if she uses an oblong bead, she uses other smaller beads that will blend in both color and shape with the center bead.

After the center bead is in place, she puts a small sequin on each end of the center bead and strings smaller beads of different colors around it.

When this is done, with small, almost invisible stitches, she sews another 1⁵/8-inch piece of felt to the back of her first round. This second piece of felt is the same color as the first round and its purpose is to cover all the stitches she has put in when stringing her beads and sewing the smaller round to the larger one.

Each medallion has three pieces of felt. Two 1⁵/8-inch rounds and one 1-inch round. There are from 175 to 200 beads and fifty sequins on each medallion. Making them is slow and meticulous work.

For the outer edging, Mrs. Mintz uses sequins. She doesn't want them to lie flat and getting them to stand up is quite a trick.

She puts a small bead on first, then a large sequin, then a small one which fits inside the larger one; two tiny beads and a larger bead. She circles the entire round in this manner and when she has finished, the felt is barely visible. All that can be seen is a design worked with beads.

Now she's ready for the ribbon. She buys her bolts of ribbon wholesale. In the winter she gets velvet and winter shades. In the spring and summer she has cool, gay colored ribbon.

The grosgrain ribbon is cut in twenty-two-inch lengths, the velvet in twenty-inch lengths.

Next she sews a snap on the ribbon about two and a half inches from each end. The finished medallion is then sewed to one side of the ribbon. All of the work is done by hand.

When the medallion is worn, no adjustment is necessary. It slips around the neck and snaps in place. A very simple operation for such an eye catching accessory.

MRS. MINTZ has made over a thousand of these lovely neckpieces and each one is different. If she's using a royal blue ribbon, she will have beads of blue, white and blending colors. If it's a plaid ribbon, her colors blend with the colors in the plaid. None of the bead designs are alike.

Some of her beads are very old and very rare, but she uses them all. She has found collector's items in boxes she paid 10 cents for.

After a very successful year, Mrs. Mintz is still keeping her business on a hobby basis, although several stores have asked her to hire help and go into production on a large scale.

By using the arch punch to cut the felt rounds, and by putting the centers of ten or twelve medallions together at one time, Mrs. Mintz has found she can cut her work time from two hours to one hour or even forty-five minutes for each medallion. Even so, at times she has all she can do to keep up with her orders.