Hi Mort and welcome to the Forum! Hi Mikeyy!
One way to suspect that pearls are dayed is apart from the colour the shape of the pearls.
In the above pictures you can see quite clearly that the shape of these pearls is very oval/eggy or whatever you want to call them.
The next thing I would look for are blemishes. If the pearls show blemishes, you could guess that they are at least dyed and probably luster enhanced as well, otherwise the sellers can?t get rid of them, even if there are most certainly many people who would go for the lower price rather than the ghastly colour or the large blemishes.
Luckily our members on this forum get so much education from other members, they will know exactly what to look for!
The third criterion that should tell you what kind of pearls it is about is of course the price. They should be very cheap.
The one thing I can say for those pearls is the fact that they are cheap and this might make them interesting for us beaders to train our stringing skills
.
Finally there is a huge difference between dyed and dyed: If you look at last month?s Special from PP or from TPO and other vendors on this forum you will realize that not only are these strands a lovely colour, they are really round to the eye, not as many of the Chinese sellers try to make us believe, when they call their pearls "very round" that simply means be prepared to get oval potatoe shaped perals, and they (PP:s pearls) have a fine luster, very few blemishes if any, no disturbing ones anyway plus a very reasonable price!
So to sum up: for training reasons only it is OK to buy cheap, ugly dyed pearls or perhaps if you want to make yourself a "pearl curtain", in that case the money paid for may be worthwile....
