Click picture to see entire image:

Cost per bead:

G952

Bead material:

Glass

Country of origin:

Czech Republic

Size/shape:

9mm teardrops (9mm lengthwise)

Colors/description:

opaque light orange (the picture isn't accurate; see below)

Defects:

To the naked eye, these beads look defect-free.  But when I looked at an enlarged photograph, I saw that up to 20% of them have one or more pits along the seam in the middle of the bead.  In most cases, I believe the pits are too small to see or to be concerned with, but in some cases they might be noticeable.  As a result, I lowered the price from $3.00 to $2.50 (that's a reduction of 17%).

Comments:

I really, really, really like these teardrops.  Unfortunately, they are impossible to photograph.  In fact, trying to photograph these beads was a lesson in the limits of digital photography.  In all the photographs I took – two dozen or more, varying the settings – not one picture looked right.  In all the pictures, the beads came out looking too dark and slightly translucent.  In reality, the beads are a light, bright opaque chiffon orange.  The beads look like they have a lot of white in them.  In fact, imagine the difference between tomato soup made with water and tomato soup made with milk.  If you were to mix milk into the color above, that would be the color of these beads.

Here is the supplier's picture for comparison: