Just bought in China - 12mm golden pearl. Is the color natural?

[Cathy]

Dear all,

Just went to Suzhou, China, on vacation and couldn't resist the sales pitch at a group tour of a pearl factory. Bought this fresh water pearl for $1,500. See picture. It is fresh water pearl, 12mm, oval shape. The bottom is flatter, so not a perfect round shape. The sales pitch was that a black pearl is 10 times more expensive than a white pearl; and a golden pearl is 10 times more expensive than a black pearl. So the price suddenly looks very reasonable. Then a friend told me upon my return that there is no Golden fresh water pearl. It must be dyed to golden. I saw 3 golden pearls of this size at the factory. The other 2 are both pale but this one is really golden and that was why I chose it. Any comments on if the color is natural or dyed? The picture was taken with a square of bathroom tissue as the background to give a reference of size.

Thank you,

Cathy

 

[Frost Me]

It's beautiful, so large, love it!

 

[cyndayco]

It's true; there are no naturally golden freshwater pearls. You probably have a Ming or Edison-type freshwater pearl with a round bead inside. If you can't see any dark spots where the dye pooled, the color may have been chemically induced while pearl was in the mussel.

Some collectors like their pearl colors natural; some are willing to buy dyed pearls so long as they are priced reasonably and the dye doesn't fade over time.

Yours looks gorgeous. Wear it often!

 

[jshepherd]

Gold is a dyed color in freshwater, unfortunately. Colors are not induced while in the mussels either. It does look like a South Sea though.

 

[cyndayco]

So Jeremy, how are colors induced in pearls? Renee Newman mentions it in her book but doesn't explain the technique.

 

[pearlescence]

Generally the pearls are put into liquid dye and left there for however long. It is a skill or knack though. I've seen some really badly dyed pearls as well as some great ones - freshwaters with a peacock effect better than most Tahitians for example, as well as black dyed ones so over processed they have lost their lustre and are just a sort of semi matt heavy black, like a blackboard.
I'm told that the best pearl dye company in HK closed down last year. I wonder if that was because of the switch in popularity away from deep dye to natural shades. certainly good black freshwaters were thin on the ground.
I did see some pretty close attempts at bead nuked gold south sea freshwaters, but lots of them are still a sort of earwax yellow

 

[jshepherd]

I've only heard of one company in Japan that has actually induced unnatural colors by injecting the pearl sac, but I don't think anything ever came of it. I've heard lots of claims at pearl markets (primarily outside China) that the freshwater pearl colors are induced while the pearls are in the shell, but it's just not true. Neither is the laser treatment to create the golds as the story often goes. That one I've heard in China too.

The colors are created with dye in something that looks like a pressure cooker and only what I would consider commercial grade pearls get dyed. You can get fine quality too, but you have to buy the natural colors first (they use peach and lavender to dye) and then pay a factory to dye them. Unnatural-colored pearls are worth less than white and natural colors, which is another reason it wouldn't make sense to induce a different color inside the mussel.