The History of Bead Cord: From Silk to High-Tech Fibres - GRIFFIN 1866

GRIFFIN silk cord has been the trade benchmark for bead and pearl stringing for over 160 years. In a craft where materials, fashions and techniques shift with every generation, most products come and go. GRIFFIN Natural Silk has not. The company evolved its range when the work demanded it, and held the standard that made the original product worth using. Here is how GRIFFIN bead cord grew from a single natural silk product in 1866 to the most comprehensive professional cord range available today.

The First Bead Cords: Pure Natural Silk in 1866

When Carl Schinle set up his workshop in Schramberg, Germany in 1866, silk wasn’t just the best material for bead stringing and it was essentially the only serious option. It had exactly the right combination of properties: smooth enough to thread through the tightest bead holes, strong enough to bear the weight of pearls and gemstones, flexible enough to drape beautifully, and absorbent enough to hold the knots that kept each bead exactly where it belonged.

The specific silk GRIFFIN chose mattered. Natural filament silk thread drawn from the continuous fibre of a silkworm cocoon rather than shorter-staple silk fibres, it is stronger, more uniform and smoother than cheaper alternatives. That’s still the specification GRIFFIN 100% Natural Silk is made to today. From day one, the choice of raw material set a quality standard that everything else in the range would have to match.

The construction method was just as deliberate. GRIFFIN’s Z-Twist triple-twisted construction, where the silk is twisted three times in the same clockwise direction, creating a cord that stays round under tension and resists unravelling, was developed early in the company’s history. It’s still the method used for GRIFFIN Natural Silk, NylonPower and High Performance cord today. Some things don’t need changing.

Carl Schinle and the Founding of GRIFFIN in Schramberg

Carl Schinle was a manufacturer and trader of ornamental trimmings and the decorative braids, cords and threads that 19th-century fashion, upholstery and jewellery depended on. Schramberg, in the Black Forest region of Baden-Württemberg, was a natural fit for this kind of business. The region had a long tradition of precision manufacturing: clockmaking, textile production, and that history created a ready supply of technical knowledge and skilled workers.

What’s particularly striking about GRIFFIN’s story is its continuity. The company has stayed under family ownership through five consecutive generations without interruption. In an era when most manufacturing brands have been acquired, merged and reorganised into something unrecognisable, that’s a genuine rarity. It means there’s a direct line between the principles Carl Schinle established in 1866 and the products available today.

GRIFFIN Silk Cord and the Jewellery Capital of Pforzheim

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Pforzheim roughly 70 kilometres north of Schramberg was the undisputed centre of German jewellery manufacturing. Known as the Goldstadt, or City of Gold, it produced the vast majority of Germany’s jewellery, with thousands of craftspeople working across everything from precious metal settings to pearl knotting and bead stringing.

Being close to Pforzheim gave GRIFFIN direct access to professional users who knew exactly what they needed from a stringing material. Pearl knotting at the level that Pforzheim workshops demanded wasn’t forgiving: cord couldn’t fray during handling, knots had to be consistent, and properties had to hold through a full production day. That pressure drove GRIFFIN to keep refining its manufacturing processes throughout the early decades, and the demands of professional use began shaping what a truly professional bead cord needed to be.

The 1940s–50s Synthetic Revolution: GRIFFIN Embraces Nylon

The arrival of synthetic fibres, especially Nylon in the mid-20th century, presented a genuine challenge for the bead cord industry. A new category of material could now outperform natural silk in certain applications: more consistent from batch to batch, more resistant to moisture and humidity, and in some formulations significantly stronger.

GRIFFIN’s response is worth paying attention to. Rather than defending silk as the only real option, the company moved to produce the best synthetic cord available alongside it. GRIFFIN NylonPower wasn’t positioned as a budget alternative and it was developed as a professional-grade material in its own right. Approximately twice the tensile strength of conventional nylon, triple-twisted with the same Z-Twist construction as Natural Silk, and available in the same 21 colours and 13 sizes. Makers who needed silk used Natural Silk. Makers who needed something vegan, more moisture-resistant or stronger used NylonPower. Both at the same industry reference level.

GRIFFIN High Performance: High-Tech Fibres Enter the Range

High Performance arrived when even NylonPower couldn’t answer certain demands. Built from ultra-high-tech synthetic fibres, its specifications are striking: 15 times stronger than steel by strength-to-weight ratio, impossible to break by hand, and available in ten sizes from No. 0 (0.30mm) to No. 10 (0.90mm) in white.

It exists specifically for the applications where both silk and standard nylon run into problems: very heavy gemstones like hematite and pyrite, very fine drill holes in precision-cut faceted stones, abrasive bead interiors that gradually wear conventional cords thin over months of wear. It doesn’t replace silk or NylonPower. It fills the gap that neither of them could fill.

That approach is consistent with how GRIFFIN handles material development across the board: identify a genuine performance gap, develop the right material to address it, and position it accurately within the existing range rather than using it as an excuse to retire products that are already doing their job well.

Rainbow Silk, Neon Silk and What the 21st Century Needed

The most recent additions to the GRIFFIN range reflect something real about how jewellery making has changed over the last decade. Three developments stand out.

Rainbow Silk, a 100% natural silk, hand-dyed in small batches with a colour gradient that transitions across the full 2 metre card and addresses the growing design direction where the stringing material is a visible, intentional element rather than something hidden inside a finished piece. Every card is slightly different, which makes each piece using Rainbow Silk genuinely one-of-a-kind.

Neon Silk (also 100% natural silk, also hand-dyed in small batches) introduces UV-reactive fluorescent colourways: Neon Yellow, Neon Pink, Neon Orange, Neon Light Pink, Neon Green and Rainbow Neon, that transform visually under blacklight. It’s proven particularly effective for jewellery makers creating content for social media.

NylonPower’s explicit positioning as a vegan alternative to Natural Silk, with the same specifications, same colour range and same pre-attached needle that reflects the practical reality that makers increasingly need to state what their materials are, not just that they’re good. Each of these innovations addresses a genuine shift in the market, not a trend chased for its own sake. That’s the pattern across all 160 years.

160+ Years of GRIFFIN: What Hasn’t Changed

Across five generations, multiple material revolutions and a completely transformed market, certain things about GRIFFIN have remained constant.

• German manufacture: All GRIFFIN cord and thread products are still manufactured in Germany, using GRIFFIN-developed machinery and processes. That’s not a heritage claim made for marketing purposes, it’s an ongoing production decision that reflects the company’s commitment to quality control that’s difficult to maintain at a distance.

• Family ownership: GRIFFIN has been under continuous family ownership since Carl Schinle founded it in 1866. The people making decisions about product development and quality standards have a multi-generational stake in the brand’s reputation.

• Z-Twist triple construction: Three-stage Z-Twist prevents fraying, maintains the round profile, produces predictable knotting behaviour. Developed early in the company’s history, still in use today for Natural Silk, NylonPower and High Performance.

• The integrated needle: Every 2-metre card of GRIFFIN Natural Silk and NylonPower comes with a stainless steel beading needle pre-attached to the working end. This eliminates the threading step that slows production work and frustrates beginners. It’s been part of the product since GRIFFIN’s early history.

• Environmental responsibility: Green electricity, FSC and EU Ecolabel-certified paper, Germany’s Dual System green packaging scheme, sustainably sourced natural raw materials. This isn’t recent for GRIFFIN, it reflects a long-held understanding that manufacturing quality and environmental responsibility aren’t competing goals.

The history of the GRIFFIN bead cord isn’t a story about a company that found something good and refused to change it. It’s the story of a manufacturer that set a quality standard in 1866 and spent the next 160 years finding ways to honour it. The silk is still there, still excellent, still the cord pearl knotters reach for first. Everything else has been added because it genuinely needed to be.

Explore the full GRIFFIN product range at griffin1866store.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

When was GRIFFIN founded and by whom?

GRIFFIN was founded in 1866 by Carl Schinle, a manufacturer and trader of ornamental trimmings, in Schramberg, Germany in the Black Forest region. The company has remained family-owned through five consecutive generations without interruption.

What is GRIFFIN silk cord made from?

GRIFFIN Natural Silk Bead Cord is made from 100% natural filament silk, the continuous thread from silkworm cocoons, which is stronger, smoother and more uniform than shorter-staple silk fibres. It’s triple twisted using GRIFFIN’s Z-Twist construction and ecologically dyed.

Is GRIFFIN NylonPower a vegan alternative to silk?

Yes. GRIFFIN NylonPower is 100% synthetic nylon with no animal-derived content. It’s GRIFFIN’s confirmed vegan alternative to Natural Silk, matching it in colour range (21 colours), size range (13 sizes) and including the same pre-attached stainless steel needle on every 2-metre card.

What makes GRIFFIN High Performance cord different from silk?

GRIFFIN High Performance is made from ultra-high-tech synthetic fibres rather than natural silk. It’s 15 times stronger than steel on a strength-to-weight basis, can’t be broken by hand and is designed specifically for very heavy gemstones and fine drill holes where silk or standard nylon wouldn’t provide adequate long-term security.

Is GRIFFIN bead cord still manufactured in Germany?

Yes. All GRIFFIN cord and thread products are manufactured in Germany, using GRIFFIN-developed machinery and processes. This has been the case since the company was founded in Schramberg in 1866.