Exactly ----
I pulled my clips off of my pace car and they were so heavily coated in body shop undercoating gunk that when placed in a mild (Solvent 140) tank the grime came off exposing the tranlucent Blue dye coloring..Nothing like the clips in the left side of the pictures above.
Ultimatly what I did was include the clips in my plating batch (Bright Zinc) and hung them from a wire and mist sprayed them with Dykem Blue layout Blue,,,they look very close to as found.
Jim