Still Learning! Please confirm this is (or is not) a natural pearl.

goodluckkitty

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Aug 14, 2017
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Hi! I love being here and learning from all of you. I have thoroughly read through the Pearl Education section, but sometimes I still can't be confident.
This is a natural pearl, correct?
Supposedly 1.25 inches by .75 inches.
One of things I used in my assessment is the color gradation... white to yellow in spots. Which seems common in natural pearls.
Am I most likely correct?
With gratitude,
Kitty
 

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It could be a baroque cultured pearl. It's impossible to know if it's a natural unless you have the provenance of where it was found. There are plenty of cultured pearls with yellow spots.
 
Freshwater mussels don't make regular conchyoline layers, none nacre, whatever direction, parallel to the surface or right, even in the same pearl. According to my observations, it seems that four factors give colours to pearls : proportion between conchyoline and aragonite, conchyoline colour itself, the deep where is first thick conchyoline layer under nacre, and, at last, the thickness of this layer. In case of yellow spots, it's more a question of proportion of conchyoline, wich cement aragonite, doing that. It's often happening near the artificial bead. Once again, these are my own findings, not a scientific speech.
 
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