Coin Pearl Coating/Treatment Question

[gemologist]

"carnauba wax-coated bamboo chips?" How do bamboo chips fit into the picture? they aren't even pearls?"

Ooh, i know this one Caitlin, the bamboo chips are wax impregnated and then they are put in a giant rolling barrel (I think they are similar to barrels used for candy-coating, but not 100% sure) this imparts the wax to the pearl and supposedly enhances the appeal.

But, being a purist when it comes to gemstones, the ones I import that are not strung, I always opt out of all of the treatments, I suppose I may loose something on luster, but I have a thing against wax impregnation and also VD, because they generally aren't lasting... put it another way, would you buy an emerald that had a coating of nail polish on it's underside? (the real answer for most people unable to spot it is yes, so long as they didn't know it was there) The chinese FW pearl suppliers aren't stupid, beauty sells, but I can't handle stuff like that in what are actually in my opinion, great pearls that only would need it if people were holding freshwater pearls to a standard that should only apply to bead nucliated pearls.

I favor full disclosure with all gemstones, and I do try with mine, but when was the last time you were told that blue topaz wasn't blue until they irradiated them? or that mystic topaz, aqua aura quartz and the like were VD coated? The truth is that if it's cheap, it doesn't need to be disclosed.

GIA is great at demanding disclosure of gemstone enhancements, but takes a huge step away from that when it comes to pearls claiming ubiquity of treatment. Personally, I don't care, I want to know if my stones didn't look that way naturally.

Thanks to Zeide for that great info on types of pearl enhancement, that's good stuff, I feel ashamed that I didn't know about some of that stuff earlier.

P.s. FW pearls usually get the dupont treatment and if your going through HK and don't want treatment BEWARE, your likely gonna get it anyways (they want to sell you stock on hand, not make new orders with the farms)

 

[jshepherd]

I would take anything Zeide said with a grain of salt. Or maybe a farm-size salt-lick for that matter. She had a lot of fantaZs as we call them.

Freshwater pearl treatments are so standard in China that the only way for most to get untreated is buy purchasing the material that is not "worth the effort". It is possible to purchase a lot from a second-stage or even first-stage factory untreated, but this also means the buyer must have the ability to process the goods.

No matter what any supplier from China tells you (they will all tell you what you WANT to hear), if you buy pearls on a temporary strand they are treated. They are bleached, they have gone through maeshori, and they have almost certainly gone through a luster-enhancement process. The reason is simple. The pearls are not sold outside of the industry until they reach the third stage or processing. Before that they are just materials to the processors. Materials that are not yet ready to sell.

 

[pattye]

By VD, do you mean vapor disposition? How does that work? Is that what gives the "mystic" coating on gemstones? It is easy to detect the AB, aurora borealis, coating on mother of pearl beads and crystals.

 

[gemologist]

yep, I don't completely understand how it all works exactly, but from what I have gathered with other types of vapor deposition it has to do with somehow altering the form of a solid, then put it a vaccume, possibly a heated one with the items that are to be coated, then the metal or crystal being deposited precipitate out of the capor onto the items to recieve them. They do something similar with sapphire crystal being deposited on mineral glass lenses to increase wear... but microscopically it simply looks like a bunch of crystals lined up on the exterior.

I am sure there are people who could give a better and more accurate description... somewhere

 

[Slraep]

Being a pearl purist and a great giver-awayer of fine pearls, I resent that. As far as pictures go, I am willing to send you some by e-mail, but posting them publicly causes certain problems. Since I constantly scour eBay for the one or the other stray of my fine pearls that slipped through the cracks (I only take the best and let my researchers keep the rest), posting pictures of my pearls publicly only invites image theft that makes it way there fast. I still remember how puzzled I was to find pictures of some of my most treasured possessions all over eBay after e-mailing them around to find some matching pearls for earrings and such.

Zeide

The paragraph above is a bunch of crock!!--- written by the infamous liar-of-a-pearl-scholar, Zeide G. Erskine. The pictures of her pearls were never stolen by Chinese vendors. SHE was the one using their pictures without permission, and fabricating stories about her own pearls using those pictures. The part about her "letting my researchers keep the rest" is totally laughable. So laughable, in fact, that I am still laughing two years later. Nobody in the pearl-world has ever heard of her, let alone her having her own "researchers".

Farm-size salt lick!! Heheheh.

Slraep

 

[Slraep]

They may use some sort of vapour deposition on fake pearls like Swarowski but I do not think it is done on real ones.

Jeremy, have you seen any cases?

Slraep

 

[jshepherd]

Strack mentioned it. But if I recall it was only experimented with back in the 60s with flouride vapor. As far as I know it is not used at all. I have never seen it or come across a pearl that has been treated with VD.

 

[Caitlin]

Thanks to Zeide for that great info on types of pearl enhancement, that's good stuff, I feel ashamed that I didn't know about some of that stuff earlier.

That was one of Zeide's better cons. Thanks for bumping this thread. I am taking her posts out.

 

[Caitlin]

Yeah, that post asking about the tumbling with wax and bamboo chips was 3 years ago. Zeide had 1,500 posts when she left. I've only managed to get rid of about 500 so far.

 

[laurenb]

Yeah, that post asking about the tumbling with wax and bamboo chips was 3 years ago. Zeide had 1,500 posts when she left. I've only managed to get rid of about 500 so far.

If someone has direct access to the database of posts, you may be able to do a batch delete?

Jeremy, is that strap on your shoulder in the photograph one of these?
http://www.saddlebackleather.net/store/scripts/prodList.asp?idCategory=16

 

[jshepherd]

If someone has direct access to the database of posts, you may be able to do a batch delete?

Jeremy, is that strap on your shoulder in the photograph one of these?
http://www.saddlebackleather.net/store/scripts/prodList.asp?idCategory=16

We cannot delete them all or many of the threads will no longer make sense. Caitlin has been going through the thousands and thousands of pages by hand and deleting or editing Z's posts. She has been working on it for more than a year.

Re: the bag
Nope! It was more of a duffel bag. A really strong one. I used it to haul pearls.

 

[lisa c]

Go to page two of this thread for really cool pics of hundreds of thousands of untreated pearls, pics courtesy of Jeremy

 

[Adeline Leigh]

Coin pearl metallic lustre and duck tailed fireballs

Coin pearl metallic lustre and duck tailed fireballs

Dear CFWP experts, here's something that I have been puzzling about.

(1) Lustre of baroque coin pearls
I was comparing a recent lot of coin pearls I had obtained with some from 2 years back and what struck me is how much more lustre the newest lot (top row in my palm) had in comparison to the thicker nacred pearls from 2009. My question: is the metallic lustre due to new and evolved treatments/ coatings or can it be attributed to environmental factors like growth or harvesting in cold waters as I think I have read before (hopefully not errorneous information) on this forum? Please do correct me if I am wrong.

(2) Shape of CBSP (coin-bead/spherical bead pearls) aka fireballs/ flameballs
Second question has to do with the shape of the baroque CBSP as shown in my other picture. Again, in comparison to my pearls from 2-3 years back, I can no longer find these queerly-shaped "duck-tailed" pearls that I happen to think attractive. Can anyone tell me how is it these no longer seem to be appearing on the market? I can only guess that pearling techniques have since improved and these misshapen baroques have had their "wings" and "duck tails" clipped.

Would appreciate it if anyone can shed light.

 

[Caitlin]

I think the quality of the pearls has really improved since I joined this forum! The luster! The colors! Oh. My!!!!

 

[Amanda]

The idea of my pearls having VD alarms me nearly as much as nuclear pearls.

Perhaps VD doesn't have quite the same implications outside the UK?

 

[Pearl Dreams]

VD (in this context) means vapor deposition.

 

[Amanda]

Thank you. Less alarming.

 

[Marianne]

Oh my, I am laughing to tears! Thanks

 

[Adeline Leigh]

I'm resigned to the fact that these pearls I bought on temporary strands are probably VDed as well. In this context, I don't seem to mind them

Anyone else can shed light on duck-tailed pearls?

 

[Pearl Dreams]

Adeline, I would not assume that; many CFW pearls seem to have metallic qualities.