Metallic Edison Peal Smash for Those Who Enjoy a Good Pearl Smash

Gemandpearlover

Gemandpearlover

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I'm new so let me know if these type of posts are not in the spirit of this forum and I will stop posting them. The OCD in me needed to know if these metallic Edisons were worth stringing. :) I took two that I believed had thin nacre and smashed them. I am not going to lie- I have enjoyed breaking things since I was a wee kid.

According to my not so scientific methods (I compared the nacre thickness to a 1.2mm filter needle and the metrics on a wrapper of a a medical bio-occlusive dressing) the nacre is roughly .0.8 to 1.2 mm thick.

And now the picture. :)


IMG_0528 (1).jpg

The good news is that now that I am done buying learner pearls I have reached out to a recommended and respected forum member and will be buying a couple strands of metallic white FW pearls from her. So no need to smash pearls because I trust that she is great. :)
 
Cool! Thanks for sharing the findings of your experiment!

As far as I'm concerned this sort of post is precisely what this forum is about. :)
 
Interesting to see the inside of pearl, the "hollow" side. I always wondered if the inside was beautiful like the outside. Not so much, evidently. ;)
 
Thank you Pattye, Pearl Dreams, BWeaves and CricketBug.

CricketBug my pictures aren't that great but the bead looks like mother of pearl. It has a lovely rainbow play of color when held to light.
 
I bet the inside would be pretty if it were polished up. Even better if tiny gemstones were glued in.
 
This is a perfect post for pearl guide! Thank you for sharing :)
 
Gemandpearlover said:
CricketBug my pictures aren't that great but the bead looks like mother of pearl. It has a lovely rainbow play of color when held to light.
Click to expand...
I was particularly curious about the hollow part of the “shell”, although it’s interesting to note the MOP-like bead, too.
 
Gemandpearlover, thank you for this brave experiment!:)
Just a point: the nacre of this kind of nice pearls is often thick, but not metallic in all the thickness, just a few layers separated by more or less pale colour nacre.
I think these pearls are produced by farmers watching carefully the right moment to harvest, especially about water temperature, or/and a chemical factor (?).
Then, pearls show a metallic surface of thin conchyoline effect as the last layer mussel has made before harvesting.
 
Last edited:
ericw said:
Gemandpearlover, thank you for this brave experiment!:)
Just a point: the nacre of this kind of nice pearls is often thick, but not metallic in all the thickness, just a few layers separated by more or less pale colour nacre.
I think these pearls are produced by farmers watching carefully the right moment to harvest, especially about water temperature, or/and a chemical factor (?).
Then, pearls show a metallic surface of thin conchyoline effect as the last layer mussel has made before harvesting.
Click to expand...

Yes- the thin metallic nacre is exactly what I noticed on the pearls that I replaced. I at first thought all the nacre was very thin and I was seeing the bead because of missing nacre on those pearls. But like you explained- it was the metallic nacre that was thin. Might be pretty pearls today and not so pretty pearls in the future.
 
Maybe you are right, Gemandpearlover, it's truly a question of day to harvest.
I don't know how quickly the mussel produces conchyoline on its pearl, but perhaps even less than one day for such a thin layer to do this special enamel effect.
More conchyoline would turn the pearl in strange tones of lavender/brown yellow, like many freshwater flameballs sold now.
 
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