A rosary is built from cheap materials by design, it must survive being carried in a pocket and worn on a wrist, and a strand a penitent can afford matters more than one that impresses.
Materials, common and elevated
Most rosaries are strung on cord or wire from wood, glass, plastic or seed beads, olive pits and rose petal paste, a compressed fragrant bead once common from convent workshops, among the traditional choices. Wealthier examples use semiprecious stone, coral or silver links joined by small chains rather than cord, a form that survives longer but is not considered more efficacious for prayer, since the counting function is identical either way. Beads made from olive wood grown around Bethlehem, sold through Christian workshops there, are a specific regional trade rather than a doctrinal requirement.
Blessing, repair and the Eastern equivalent
A priest blesses a new rosary, after which a Catholic treats a broken one as worth restringing rather than replacing outright, since the blessing is understood to attach to the object rather than to a particular string. Orthodox Christianity uses a related but distinct object, the prayer rope or komboskini, made of tied wool or leather knots rather than beads, each knot tied in a specific pattern by a monastic, and it is worked and blessed differently even though its function, counting repeated short prayers, is the same one the rosary performs in the West.