Q:
1) Is Techeiles Chabura (chabureh?) Techeiles supposed to be lighter in shade than Ptil Tekhelet? I have a set which I bought last year and I noticed that the the color is much closer to sky blue, as opposed to my Tallis Gadol strings (Ptil Tekhelet) which are much closer to indigo colored. If it’s not supposed to be lighter, does that mean my Techeiles is fading? Isn’t there supposed to be a rule against that?2) Besides for Ptil Tekhelet and Chabura, I saw an ad for something call Techeiles Valles. Who are these people, and what is the source of their dye? I see that they carry an Eida HaChareidis hechsher, but their letter doesn’t seem to cover the color, it just mentions the strings. Finally, do they sell these in Israel and how much do they cost?
Thanks!
A: a) The Techeiles Chabura (Toporovich) makes Techeiles from the same snails ?, though theirs is sourced from Greece (as opposed to Spain and Croatia where Ptil sources their dye from) and they supposedly do some different things, like using fresh snails and only using murex trunculus (whether or not Ptil also uses murex branderis isn’t certain, but at any rate murex snail based blue is kosher). Also, the fact that one group is more “Yeshivish” appeals to a certain crowd (though I personally never saw a snail with a black hat – though those exist in California [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexaplex_nigritus]).
b) Valles is a name brand in Israel of Tzitzis wool that sells for more money. Their strings are supposedly much thicker and they supposedly do various Hiddurim that regular Tzitzis don’t have, hence the hechsher. The dye though with Valles is sourced by both Toporovich and Ptil (see screenshot). They sell them in Lakewood here (https://techeiles-shop.com/pages/strings) but since Toporovich is in Israel your best bet is to contact the Chabura for more info (https://www.techeiles.org/contact-us/). The above said, with the Chabura and Valles you need to do your own tying (lots of great options here https://bluefringes.com/string-tying-styles-2/) but Ptil does it as a packaged deal (https://store.tekhelet.com/?mobile=0), making them an ideal option. Hope this helps!
