Hi Jamey, I am just offering these for comparison to Anne's for her to draw her own conclusions. The ones I posted were found geographically "in situ" as Erhai Lake was the heartland of Dali society and the reference I saw mentions the excavated recovery site, notwithstanding they look old to me. Then again authenticity is usually just a "matter of opinion" when verifiable scientific analysis is not available to corroborate it. I 100% agree regarding many PRC and ROC publications are written by enthusiastic collectors or dealers trying to lend their sales validity. Even much of the academic archeological research in the PRC is tainted by State dictates for their findings to support the current nationalist trend. No doubt there is a load of rubbish coming out of China. A couple of Hong Kong dealers I know now go to Nepal regularly and are coming back with boxes of differing grades of “Tibetan eye beads” as Chinese people are now believing that these will bring them luck, as one Hong Kong dealer told me “desperate people will try anything”. Believe only what you see, half of what you read and a quarter what you hear- that goes for this post as well. best wishes for a Happy Hanukka! abhaya