The seller told me he travels a lot, and that these were real Tibetan coral and turquoise, and that the dark brown wheel-shaped bead with a crackle finish is really old amber. I just liked the beads, and hoping against hope they are real "something". I suspect the dark brown one might be wood.
The coral pieces were in a separate bag. The red on the smooth pieces is only on the surface, white underneath. But I still like them very much.
On another note, he had a large deep blue glass bead that he said was "cobalt", about 1/2"x3" that I thought looked like a 2-layered cane, the blue glass with a hint of translucence. The cane/bead had a good-sized hole, maybe 2-3mm if I remember correctly, and the cross-section profile was sort of square with smoothed corners. Almost satiny surface.
If I had to guess (and as you know, I am the least scholarly member of BCN), it almost looked like a cane section for Russian blue beads. I should have taken a picture, but I did give him the url for this forum and suggested he take a pic of the bead and ask if anyone knew what it was.
