Help with wedding pearls!

[Becki24]

Hi everyone - hoping you can help me!

I'm wearing my late mum's pearls for my wedding and want to get some earrings that match. Can anyone advise what type of pearls I have? Then I can find some earrings that are similar. I have attached some photos. Thanks in advance! xx

 

[Pearl Dreams]

Hi Becki24 and welcome to Pearl Guide!

What a lovely idea, wearing your mother's pearls at your wedding. They look like they might be akoya pearls, but I'm wondering if your mother added the two pearls that don't match the others. They are symmetrically placed, and they ease the graduation, which makes me think that is possible.

You could restring the necklace, omitting those two if you want it to look more uniform in color. This would also eliminate the gap between two of the pearls, and make it easier to find earrings to match the color of the necklace as a whole. Restringing as a good idea anyway because silk becomes weak and breakage is a risk.

Older pearls can become yellowed or cream colored and sometimes it's difficult to match them as newer pearls may be whiter. If you find this to be the case, you might want to check out local shops that sell estate jewelry for matching earrings.

 

[lilliefuzzysocks]

I agree with Pearl Dreams. There is a wide range of tones these older akoyas can turn making matching a problem unless you take them shopping with you to the antique stores. I looked for some using ebay and ended up looking in person. If you don't find earrings, perhaps you'll find a strand similar to yours you can harvest pearls for your earrings depending on the style you want to wear. You may want to ask for broken jewelry if they have that in the back.

 

[Sanippy]

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding, how exciting! And your pearls are beautiful. What style of earring did you have in mind? It may be challenging to find an exact colour match but given the distance between the neck and ears it might not be so noticeable.

 

[CathyKeshi]

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding. A lovely idea to wear your late mother's pearl necklace. I am intrigued by those 2 pearls that don't seem to quite match ... it's not just the color; the surface texture of those 2 pearls is quite different from the rest of the pearls; makes me wonder if they were added to the necklace from some other piece of jewelry, possibly for sentimental reasons? Do you have any information on the history of the necklace? I second the idea of looking for older pearls and/or jewelry for a closer match in color for earrings.