These beads arrived today - the shipping package was intact and well-padded, with no evidence of any sort of adverse shipping event. I'd ordered 4 strands of these "6mm cherry quartz rounds". 'Rounds' is a euphemism...I could see flat sides before I even took them out of their polybag. I tried ascertaining the number of broken/flawed beads without taking them off their string but I could not. I cut one string, counted the total beads (70), and then put them under a magnifying light to either confirm my worst suspicions.or to see if I needed new glasses. Out of the 70 beads on that one string, there were 17 decent beads and an incredible 53 beads that had very visible flaws, able to be seen without the magnifying light, Most flaws were either a flat side on a 'round' bead, or a flat side with a divot in it, or an attempted double drilled bead, or an area where the driller blew out one end of the drilled hole, possibly by using a dull drill bit, or some had a generally pitted exterior. The remaining 3 strings of beads from that order appear to have the same problems. I assume that is why the were reduced so drastically - but still, warning the purchaser that they are definitely seconds or imperfects would have been the correct thing to do. If I'm lucky, out of the four strands total of 280 beads, I may just be able to salvage the 59 beads needed to make one rosary,the other beads that I ordered from this same seller ("6x8mm Fluorite Puffy triangles") arrived exactly as described, and I'm very happy with those. But these 'cherry quartz', and I'm not too sure about the accuracy of that name, those beads are a joke. I think the Beads by the Strand folks got taken when they bought them, and then so did I..