Shell money most valued by the Native American tribes of the Pacific Coast from Alaska to northwest California was "Dentalium shell", a species of long narrow marine shelled mollusk, a tusk shell or scaphopod. The tusk shell is naturally open at both ends, and can easily be strung on a thread. This shell money was valued by its length rather than the exact number of shells; the "ligua", the highest denomination in their currency, was a length of about 6 inches. Farther south, in central California and southern California, the shell of the olive snail "Olivella biplicata" was used to make beads
Prehistoric beads in the Philippines BCE. Alastair Lamb states that the most common type of bead for around that time was the Indo-Pacific beads. According to Francis, the beads could be named “Indo Pacific Monochrome Drawn Glass Beads”. These Indo-Pacific beads can be found to occur everywhere in Southeast Asia. Other than these, there could be found at that time, Chinese beads (which were traded generally either by non-Han Chinese, other Southeast Asians, or Westerners depending on the time period), Muslim beads, Java beads, and Indian beads. Clues as to the nature of bead trade in South East Asia could be found in the Pandanan