A question about dyed or color treated pearls!

[SunSeeker]

Thanks for the comparison shots, amti and Lilliefuzzysocks!

Yes, organic gunk, you are welcome here!

 

[mrsadm]

Lilliefuzzysocks, your custom dyed freshwater pearls are beautiful, but I believe very much *unlike* 99.99% of the dyed freshwater s on the market today.

 

[raggdoll]

It looks like dyed akoyas are often nicer then dyed freshwaters, but I think I would end up selling any dyed pearls in the long run so I will try to avoid buying them in the first place. Naturally colored ones are just so beautiful, it's a piece of mother natures magic

 

[Pearl Dreams]

I would not have thought the baroque akoyas in the last few photos were dyed. I would have assumed natural variation.

 

[lilliefuzzysocks]

Lilliefuzzysocks, your custom dyed freshwater pearls are beautiful, but I believe very much *unlike* 99.99% of the dyed freshwater s on the market today.

Thank you , but the pearls on the left and middle belong to Pearl Paradise. I just took them out of the vault for a comparison photo with the Vantel strand.

 

[amti]

I would not have thought the baroque akoyas in the last few photos were dyed. I would have assumed natural variation.

I honestly don't know if they were dyed or not. They are from the 60s and from Japan, and I don't know what type of dying methods were available then. The colors are very beautiful and so I hope they aren't dyed, but I just don't know enough to say one way or another.

 

[Katbran]

These are some very pretty dyed black freshwater pearls 12mm , from a show about 4 years ago, as I recall they were not inexpensive. Taken in the very very poor lighting so lots of little light reflections that look a bit like flaws... they were very clean pearls. As you can see and as Wendy mentioned there is variety in the shades - some strands had a very blue cast and some very green , some purple - none were just black.

 

[raggdoll]

Katbran: those are very pretty indeed!

 

[ennui]

I would not have thought the baroque akoyas in the last few photos were dyed. I would have assumed natural variation.

I agree with you, they looked very nice.

I've seen dyed akoyas at a consignment shop. They were silver-blue baroques, and they looked okay from far away, but up close I could see the concentration of dye at the drill hole and some spots.

ETA Regarding another comment, my silver blue baroques from PP are from Japan. I bought them way back in 2008.

 

[amti]

Well, maybe they are not dyed then. That would make me happy. Also, the first baroque akoyas, which are almost the same darker blue color in every pearl, are owned by my mom. She bought them brand new at the military base in Japan, probably in the 70-80s and still has the receipt. I think she paid $520 for them then, and that was when the exchange rate was about 200 yen to the dollar (the dollar has since decreased in strength by half). I don't know why I didn't think to take a photo of the receipt when I took picture of those pearls. It did say natural pearls but I'm pretty sure these were dyed.

 

[ennui]

Does anyone have any photos of irradiated (not dyed) Akoya pearls? I'd love a side-by-side with natural silver blues.

 

[CortezPearls]

Wow. Revisiting this very interesting thread from a couple of years ago and I see ennui 's request and I was not available to answer

Unfourtunately I no longer have "my collection" (all was left behind at Cortez!) but I have this photo that you may have seen before...it's an Akoya pearl that was both dyed and irradiated, so the bead has been blackened (irradiation) and the nacre was dyed with silver nitrate.