Back in 2008, soon after the Tucson Shows, I bought some new artificially-colored fossil coral beads. I can compare these to products I had seen in Naples, Italy the previous June or July.

In the long discussion I posted, I promoted the idea that these beads may have been colored via the beizen method (that is apparently a learned process, originally devised in Germany ca. 100+ years ago, but practiced in China since 1997).

The acid-based beizen processes are considered to be permanent. And (except for stones that are dyed) I don't know of any instances where these colors have faded or shifted.

A few months ago I came upon the bag of beads I bought in 2008--and I was shocked to see that (even though they had been stored away from light or radiation) the colors had noticeably dulled, over the intervening eighteen (18) years.

This unexpected action suggests that the fossil coral items had been dyed, rather than chemically color-treated.

So, here, I am showing my original photo, followed by the current photo I took, about two months ago, for comparison.

The previous discussion from 2008 can be found here:

http://beadcollector.net/cgi-bin/anyboard.cgi?fvp=/openforum/&cmd=iYz&aK=56301&iZz=56301&gV=0&kQz=&aO=1&iWz=0

JDA.