Special Iron Age objects like jewellery or some parts of weapons are often ornamented with coral applications. The identification of these applications as coral or part of coral branches are often made just visually. Chemical or physical analyses are exceptions. The analysis of a bead formerly identified as coral of a brooch found in Hänichen (near Leipzig/Germany) with radiography, 3D-tomography (3D-μCT) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) has shown that this bead was not constructed by using a naturally grow coral with conserved phases and micro-structure. The compact, relatively homogeneous, concentric microstructure of the bead could indicate a production by pressing using shell powder. Analyses of other pearls are provided within the project but this first results give already some new elements of the exchange north-south during the La Tène period.