An obvious scam. I get pearls every time I go to China for $1-10 per strand for el-cheap0 pearls. Even great ones are not that expensive over there...but the markup here is 10,000% or more. Jewelers will appraise for $300 for "replacement value" for general purposes so-as not to make their own pearls look way overpriced, but they aren't worth a hill of beans if you ever wanted to really put a retail or resale value on them.

Even looking at the picture, it's obvious they are cheap, poor quality pearls.