Iv no idea what these are.Any thoughts?

[barbaradilek]

Just bought these on line,metal not marked but tests as silver.Have never seen pearls joined like this before.Pass tooth test,cold to handle,and show no obvious nucleus when I candled them.Freshwater? Saltwater?mother of Pearl? The strand is 44cm long and each larger “ pearl is approximately 12 cms long varying in width.Purchased in the UK.Thanks so much for any input.

 

[CortezPearls]

These look like baroque fresh water pearls from China. Non-bead nucleated.

 

[StarryPearl]

I agree with Douglas.

Interesting design!

 

[Pearl Dreams]

Agree with the above.
I've never seen that design before!

 

[barbaradilek]

Thanks so much for both your replies.Now I come to the thorny question.The vendor,who sells multiple kinds of vintage/ antique goods,and had a100% feed back over a lengthy time,advertised these as “ Unusual Victorian baroque Pearl necklace”I originally thought that no one would put the amount of of work in to a necklace if the pearls weren’t special.Chinese non nucleated pearls are a modern phenomenon,so is this a deliberate attempt to to deceive ( though not necessarily by the current vendor) or some one with too much time on their hands using up cheap pearls…….

 

[barbaradilek]

PS.should add that the silver is quite tarnished,so not made last week!

 

[Pearl Dreams]

I looked in Clasps: 4000 Years of Fasteners in Jewellery by Anna Tabakhova (who is a member of Pearl Guide, username @CLICLASP).
On p. 107 it states that spring rings were invented around 1840. So that is possible.

To be certain that those are natural pearls, though, I think you'd really have to send them to the GIA. Because they could still be Chinese freshwaters strung by a creative modern artisan.