Cultivating or Freshwater?

[georgesullivan]

I received a pearl ring for my birthday. I want to know how can I say if they are cultured or if they are freshwater pearls? They are white and round, and have knots between each pearl. I do not know what the exact size is, but they are about the size of a pea.

 

[ericw]

Hi, georgesullivan,
Most of pearls used to make jewelry are cultured, some in freshwater, produced by mussels, and others produced by oysters in saltwater.
Thus, if you know it comes from freshwater, your pearl is a freshwater cultured one

 

[pearlescence]

Cultured is a jewellery industry word for farmed. Cultured sounds posher than farmed! Your pearls will be farmed/cultured.

 

[Pearl Dreams]

You said you received a ring but then talked about knots between the pearls. Which did you receive, a strand or a ring?
Please post a photo, we'd love to see it, whichever it is.

As ericw and pearlescence stated, both akoya pearls and freshwater pearls are cultured (farmed). It used to be common to refer to akoyas as "cultured pearls" to distinguish them from freshwater pearls. It was easy to tell them apart as akoya pearls were round and freshwater pearls were not round.

But as time went on and culturing techniques improved, freshwater pearls that were nearly round to fully round appeared. Increasingly now Chinese pearl farmers are inserting beads into mussels to produce completely round freshwater pearls. This will make it harder to tell them apart from akoyas.

Akoyas tend to have a harder, sharper luster than freshwaters, being farmed in cooler waters where nacre is laid down more slowly, but there are also some freshwaters with a metallic kind of luster.