craftgrrl | Quality Materials for Jewelry Making (Reply)

I have a question that I hope someone out there can help me with. I made a few pairs of earrings out of feathers. You can see them in the following links (sorry for the bad quality pics, I just used my Macbook.) Earring 1, Earring 2, Earring 3.

My problem is that, as much as I loved them, the crimp ends I used were such poor quality that they actually broke off. They broke in the way that metal does when you bend it back and forth, except this was simply from regular use. I would like to eventually start selling these, but I would never do it with such poor quality materials.

The problem I have is that I wouldn't know what isn't "poor" quality until I tried it out! That worries me, because I don't want to waste a lot of money trying to find the right thing.

I was hoping that someone here might have a suggestion for a replacement crimp end that I could use. If not, maybe the suggestion of a jewelry supply business that you've always felt sold nice quality materials.

Thanks in advance for your help!