Beautiful Pearl in Ring - could it be Cortez

[CortezPearls]

Sorry for my continued absence from the forum. Too much work, too little time left and add to this a lousy Internet connection at home...

Our Cultured Pearls are never smaller than 8.3 mm TODAY. Some might have smaller pearls from our "old" harvests (pre- 2004) when we still used 1.8 bu beads. Today we only use 6 mm beads (2.1 bu) so the smallest pearls we have are 8.3 mm. This way we make sure we have a good minimum nacre thickness on our pearls...but we usually have much better coatings.

Our Mabe pearls are never smaller than 10 mm in diameter, and besides the pearl that started this thread is clearly a loose pearl. Looks like a Pteria sterna pearl indeed...could be natural. Yet the colors are not definitive...

Now, lets try an easy test... long wave UV light!!! Watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hBO22L-KhE

My pearls always glow red/pink under UV light! So, there is a really easy way to tell these pearls from any other pearl in the world.

 

[GemGeek]

That was way cool!

 

[pattye]

Thanks, Douglas, fascinating!

 

[laurenb]

Ever since I saw the fluorescing photos on the Cortez site, I've had this amusing mental image of a woman walking into an upscale nightclub where everyone comments on her black-light active pearls, much to her surprise.

 

[pearlescence]

I have three Cortez pearls on my website