The Indian government listed Pterocarpus santalinus as a protected species in 1972. By then, it had already been logged for several hundred years.

During the British colonial period, the wood was exported to Europe in large quantities for high-end furniture and musical instruments. By the late nineteenth century, the forests of Andhra Pradesh were showing clear signs of depletion. After independence, the Indian government tightened controls incrementally. The Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 placed Pterocarpus santalinus on its schedule, and the export of raw timber was banned entirely.

The ban was not early. This tree takes more than two hundred years to reach maturity. Cut one down, and the replacement will not be usable until the next century. Wild Pterocarpus santalinus still grows in the hills of Andhra Pradesh, but not in numbers that could support commercial harvesting. The Indian forestry authorities have never published an accurate count. The figure that circulates among traders is: a few thousand mature wild trees, at most.

Since 1972, the Pterocarpus santalinus in circulation has come from two sources.

The first is pre-ban stock — old timber locked in warehouses, diminishing with each passing year. The second is reclaimed furniture. Before the wood reached its current price, it was used for ordinary household objects: tables, chairs, bed frames, cabinets. When owners died and estates were dispersed, the furniture entered the secondhand market and was eventually broken down, the timber re-entering circulation. A Qing-dynasty Pterocarpus santalinus writing desk, when dismantled, might yield enough material for several dozen bracelets.

The process resembles a kind of archaeology. The craftsman who breaks down the furniture must judge which sections are worth keeping, which have deteriorated, which have the grain and density suitable for beads, which are only fit for offcuts. From a single table, usable material might be a third of the whole.

Old wood is better than new wood. This is not collector sentiment. It is physics.

The resin of Pterocarpus santalinus continues to move through the wood fibres after the tree is felled. While the tree was alive, the resin was a defence mechanism — against rot, insects, and cracking. After death, it continues to migrate slowly toward areas of higher density, gradually solidifying. This process operates on a timescale of decades. It cannot be accelerated.

Gold fleck is the visible trace of resin crystallising within the wood fibres. Crystallisation requires conditions: resin concentration high enough, temperature variation stable enough, time long enough. Not every piece of Pterocarpus santalinus develops gold fleck. When it does, it means all three conditions were met simultaneously. In light, the fleck appears like fine metallic fragments embedded in dark wood — not reflective, but refractive: the brightness shifts with the angle.

Within a single tree, gold fleck density varies by location. The heartwood — the innermost core — holds the highest resin concentration and the densest fleck. Moving outward toward the sapwood, resin thins and fleck diminishes. Furniture grade material comes from the heartwood, the most concentrated part of the tree, and has undergone decades of additional oil migration during its years as furniture. Clay grade comes from sections of slightly lower density: less fleck, a warmer orange-red colour, but genuine Pterocarpus santalinus from the same old stock, and equally irreplaceable.