Recent content by Pearl Dreams

Definitely dyed FW.

Great find! A wonderful length-- easy to double-- and the luster more than makes up for the surface blemishes. Once you clean and restring it, it will be even better.

I wrote instructions on how I do it in my stringing tutorial, beginning with this post: https://www.pearl-guide.com/threads/stringing-tutorial-with-photos-stringing-on-serafil-beaders-secret-power-pro.6604/page-3#post-156125 I embedded this YouTube video in my post, which is slightly different:

It's been years but I also used tube style crimps for leather cord. The tube has to be just a smidge larger than the cord-- it has to fit inside the tube. I seem to recall I used a bit of glue on the leather, before inserting it into the tube and crimping the tube. Perhaps there is a how-to...

Yes, I see it now. Baroque akoyas. Cataract surgery can't come soon enough! One very blurry eye. December.

These appear to be some of the earlier Chinese bead nucleated pearls, from around 2010 or so. If you wish to wear them, then yes, you should restring them. But you don't have to pay someone to do that-- that can be expensive. You can restring them yourself. Many of us do-- it isn't hard. If...

These are Chinese freshwater pearls. They are solid nacre-- there is no bead insde to make them round.

They are dyed freshwater pearls from China. There is no bead inside to make them round so they are solid nacre. Nowadays the Chinese farmers are using beads in freshwater pearls, so these solid nacre pearls will be increasingly unusual.

@Angela007, There is a link to a YouTube video showing this technique in post #9 on page 1 of this thread. :)

Looks like Tahitians to me-- check out the overtones. Do they say what metal the 3 gold colored beads are?

If you can set the microscope to 10x power, that would be like the jeweler's loupe. At 60x power, real pearl nacre shows many wavy ripples or ridges. Loupes are not expensive. You can find one on Amazon for around $30. If you routinely buy estate items, it could be a useful thing to have. I...

Now that they are clean, do try the tests I suggested (temperature, loupe and rubbing). Even my best imitation pearls (Majorica brand) fail these tests. I once bought pearls on eBay advertised as cultured, sold by someone who sells estate items. They were fake. I saw pearls at a large antique...

I also have not heard that adage before.

Akoya pearls, but I don't recognize the brand (likely now defunct).

For what it's worth, even if they were akoyas they would not sell for much. Used pearls just don't hold their value on resale unless they are Mikimoto (because there are buyers who will pay for the name) or if they were worn by someone famous.