Another lurker coming out of the shadows

[Roy]

Like most others I have been lurking in the shadows trying to become educated enough to participate. It may be too early but here goes ...

These are a few low cost freshwater pieces I picked up for gifts:

Rice pearl necklace for a young girl -



48 inch strand and earrings -



Brackish water -
17 inch Black Brackish Water Necklace and earrings:





Saltwater -
Natural South Sea Golden Earrings:



More to follow.

 

[KarinK]

Hi Roy,

The nice thing about this forum is that you don't need to know a lot to participate - I should know No one gets flamed around here. It's just really fun to be an active part of the very friendly crowd.

You are showing some lovely pieces! I noticed the black pearls in your other thread too. They look very impressive. It should be interesting to find out if they are indeed labelled sea water or freshwater. Is the colour natural? I do love the SSP too.

- Karin

 

[Caitlin]

Everyone needs a wardrobe of freshwater pearls as you have shown us here. They are really a fun way to learn about pearls. They come in such a variety, both dyed and not, that one can build large collection for everyday wear. they are priced at the lower end of pearls, so it is easy to build a collection, in fact one can easily have a different way to wear pearls each day of the month. Women who make their freshwater pearl collections their signature look, are trendy and always stylish. A freshwater pearl necklace of about any color or style will make you look appropriate for the occasion.

One thing to learn about the world of freshwater pearls is freshwater pearls have been used to stand-in for much fancier pearls. Some venders will call dyed black freshwaters, "Tahitian black pearls" referring to the color, but fooling anyone new to pearls into thinking they are Tahitians.

Apparently, some dealers will do anything to make freshwaters appear more saltwater, like say, calling them "brackish". This is new to me, but it is obviously another seller who wants to fool people into thinking those pearls are saltier than usual.

The shine on those black freshwater pearls is fantastic!! Chinese freshwater pearl culture just gets better every year! The pearls you have shown us are commercial quality, such as sold to bead stores. I am a beader who has made up many necklaces out of pearls very similar to the ones you have shown here and I love them. There are several of us here.

I am not talking about the earrings. What size are those?

 

[Roy]

The black pearls are natural color. The SSG earrings are about 8.5mm.

I don't think the brackish description is a sales pitch. He has both freshwater and saltwater pearls. I asked him about these a couple of weeks after I bought them. I will be sending the SSG pearls to GIA for analysis as soon as I can.

 

[Bodecia]

Hi & welcome Roy,

Saltwater -
Natural South Sea Golden Earrings

I think your collection is beautiful. A great start. You say the Golden SS earrings are natural, do you mean naturally coloured. They do look that but not natural as in they would have been cultured. Or were you told they were totally natural?

Regarding your blacks, they must be freshwater (even if brackish) and so they are dyed, no matter what your seller told you. If your seller really knows his stuff he is lying to you and if he doesn't maybe he has been tricked too. Don't worry I am sure we have all been tricked many times. I still get tricked and I have been buying pearls for years now. Still I fall for the BS.

I don't think the pearls you are calling rice pearls should be called that. They are much, much better. They are beautiful little ovals and pear shaped pearls. Not rice crispys.

Keep collecting and have fun. BTW You take some great photos.

Dawn - Bodecia
http://stores.ebay.com/Dawns-Designer-Collections
Natural pearl collector and all round pearl lover

 

[newberry]

Welcome Roy to a great group. I lurked for years too before I joined. It is nice you finally decided to join us.

 

[Caitlin]

Well, One can grow freshwaters in some lousy water, maybe even water that is brackish, but it is a sales pitch. They are pearl mongers with pitches.

There are no naturally black freshwater pearl. Period. Anyone telling you that is either lying or misinformed. All black freshwaers and akoyas are dyed. There is nothing wrong with that. It makes for more flexible use of these types of pearls. The catch is, full disclosure is needed.Do not allow people to pretend freshwater pearls are anything but what they are. What they are is fine. It does not need to be hyped.

What is special about them? They still came out of a freshwater mussel. Yours are fairly matched as to size and shape. They are mass produced. There is no advantage to brackish water except as a sales tool.

Ask me about the Lop Noors (sic) from the famous traveling lake in China somewhere. Would you believe that this lake produces cherry red freshwater pearls? And of such rarity only the Dalai Lama and Zeide Erskine have full strands.......?

 

[Nerida]

Hi Roy - yes, I agree with the others here - a pretty collection.
Dawn - the beautiful oval pearls are sold in China as rice pearls - not rice as in rice krispies, but shaped like a fat grain of rice. Roy, the peach freshwaters you have are indeed very pretty.

I have already said my bit about the blacks on your other thread - there is a bit of a movement to dye some FW not peacock black but intense shiny black - these look a little like that. Unless there is something new that none here on the forum have seen before, your brackish pearls are dyed freshwaters. Dawn is right - disclosure is the key to reputable selling. They are what they are and need to be sold as such.

The GSS are gorgeous - again - natural pearls or natural colored? The color does indeed look natural to me, the pearls look cultured.I would be asking for a few opinions from experts before going to the expense of GIA analysis. They are a beautiful pair and I would wear them in a heartbeat! Enjoy!

 

[jshepherd]

Looks the start of a good collection! Interesting terminology with the brackish description. Unfortunately, the black pearls are dyed freshwater, not natural color or from brackish water. The golds look interesting, but very small for SSP. The definitely look like golden SSP though.

 

[Roy]

Correct me if I am wrong. A lab test would be able to determine if the pearls have been treated but not specify salt or freshwater?

The SSG are untreated non-cultured pearls.

This is a nice SS teardrop pendant (12.5mm x 19mm):





And a Tahitian pendant (13mm x 17mm):





This picture captures the green on top:

 

[Lagoon Island Pearls]

Correct me if I am wrong. A lab test would be able to determine if the pearls have been treated but not specify salt or freshwater?

A lab test would determine the presence of a nucleus and dye in the drilled portion. Very rarely do labs determine the species or origin pearls.

The SSG are untreated non-cultured pearls. This is a nice SS teardrop pendant (12.5mm x 19mm)

A natural SS pearl of these dimensions and appearance would be tens (possibly hundreds) of thousands of dollars to purchase. While it's still a nice cultured pearl, it's set poorly, being greatly offset at the finding.

And a Tahitian pendant (13mm x 17mm)

Again, another dyed freshwater pearl. Even in these grainy photos, I can see how the dye never penetrated layers very well.

 

[SteveM]

Correct me if I am wrong. A lab test would be able to determine if the pearls have been treated but not specify salt or freshwater?

Among the most well-established an uncontroversial lab results is salt vs. freshwater (manganese ion analysis). So it will be interesting to see how this brackish business holds up.

 

[Lagoon Island Pearls]

Among the most well-established an uncontroversial lab results is salt vs. freshwater (manganese ion analysis).

Such a high level analysis is prohibitive. It would cost multiple times the value of the string itself.

So it will be interesting to see how this brackish business holds up.

In a recent post by our new friends Rusty and Bronwynn of Torres Pearls at Escape River, Queensland, Australia, they allude to estuarine culture where "a high proportion of pink-tinged pearls in an experimental batch that were strategically placed in the river".

There is a considerable difference between a "tinge" and the outright alchemy of changing of white to black in something biotic.

I have twenty areas of Clayoquot Sound in my current operation. Two areas are estuaries (one creek, one river) and six others are in areas of pronounced fresh water lenses during rainy periods. Salinity titration is part of my weekly data routine. Normally, most euhaline areas are around 25 ppt, but can go as low as 15 ppt during rainy periods. Given the big intertidal fluctuations of the region, it's rare for the salinity to remain lower than 20 ppt for much longer than a few hours at a time, even in the estuaries. Anything lower or longer would certainly be fatal for the stocks.

At best, there is a marginal increase in the external color of shells of Venerupus phillipinarium (manila clams) due to the presence of iron from the upland. Yet the nacreous layers and tissues remain unchanged when compared to specimens of other areas.

There is absolutely no evidence, that lower levels of salinity gives rise to black pearls.

 

[pearlescence]

The Golden pearls are full drilled, which is a surprise snice such apparent good quality would have been reserved for half drilled and set accordingly,
I would have expected. I'm sorry but I would class the jet black pearls as very over-processed - I did see some strands like that in Hong Kong last month, just a few. They did not have such a good shine. They looked rather 'dead'
Brackish ....could the knowledgeable mollusc biologists come in here - freshwater species seldon survive salt do they, and certainly even a minor dilution of salinity will kill off swathes of akoya and other marine oysters , there have been reports of this happening after heavy rain washing down into the sea temporarily diluting around a farm and killing the stock, if memory serves.
While I don't want to do a seller, or a pearl buyer, down, I'm suspecting some hyperbole and economy with the truth in these descriptions.

 

[Roy]

All of these SSG pearls were full drilled.

The black pearls definetly do not look dead. They have a smoothness and shne that is very attractive.

 

[Nerida]

Roy - I agree that the color of the blacks is quite attractive. however I would advise against having any test done on the black 'brackish' strand - they are as they are - dyed cultured freshwater pearls. I agree with Dave too that the drop 'Tahitian' pendant is also a dyed freshwater. I think I would be changing pearl vendors if I were you! You have some nice pearls, but I think you have been led astray as to their origins and quality.

Dave - thank you for the information regarding salinity - added to my knowledge base!

 

[Adeline Leigh]

Ask me about the Lop Noors (sic) from the famous traveling lake in China somewhere. Would you believe that this lake produces cherry red freshwater pearls? And of such rarity only the Dalai Lama and Zeide Erskine have full strands.......?

Cherry red freshwater peaarls?!!!? Now you have really got my attention, Caitlin. Where can I start digging for info?

 

[jshepherd]

A lab can determine whether the pearls are salt or fresh by testing, but if you were to submit those pearls, there would be no need to test them. What you are reading from people here are not opinions. A lab would be able to tell just as easily with a cursory glance.

Unfortunately the sellerd lied to you. The brackish water pearls, which don't exist, are dyed freshwater from China. The pendant is also dyed freshwater. The natural gold is, if real, a cultured pearl and not natural.

 

[SteveM]

A lab can determine whether the pearls are salt or fresh by testing?

Among the most basic procedures at all of the pearl labs, and for every pearl submitted for certification, is raman spectroscopy.

 

[Caitlin]

Heh. Heh. Try searching for Lop Noors. There certainly is something appealing about them...