thrift store find: too good to be true?

jerin said:
... Anyway - if using a loupe the surface of real pearls under extreme magnification shows a surface that looks like the craters on the moon - the surface is NOT smooth on real pearls, unfortunately....
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You are talking about flaws, I believe-- and the fact that imitation pearls are made to appear as if they have no surface flaws.

But apart from flaws, the surface overall looks smoother on magnification in real pearls, and more like orange peel in imitation pearls. Even my Majorica imitation pearls, costly as they were, look more pebbly under a loupe than my least expensive cultured pearls.
 
I think Jerin is talking about the way pearls look under extreme magnification, not under lets say 10 x. Pearls aren?t smooth under extreme magnification.
 
Mervione said:
I think Jerin is talking about the way pearls look under extreme magnification, not under lets say 10 x. Pearls aren?t smooth under extreme magnification.
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Exactly - I am talking of up to 400 times magnification!
 
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pwray said:
I have to go out for a while, but I'll return with some more photos and angles. Thank you everyone, for your help. Jeremy, I appreciate your very firm opinion but truly, I don't see any way these could possibly be plastic. I mean, they practically glow in the dark, and not in a plastic glow-in-the-dark sort of way.

Not PLastic But Glass, and glas pearls can have that little "peeling nacre" look to them its where teh glass " stuck to the mold" ther are some fab fauxs they are either glass which the quality for those have gotten really good in the last few years swarovski but something there indicates possibly not swarovski are "too perfect" these look like cheaper glass the kind of glss pearls that Michaels craft stores carry.

Majorca maybe? this would explain why they may have been in with the costume stuff. But fakes these are and at $4.50 they are still a good deal even for Fabulous Fauxs.

cheers

Ash
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Don't feel bad about your thrift store hunch. There are a lot of posts on this site from people that went a lot farther out on the limb, only to be disappointed, and even worse, people that were deliberately misled and ripped off. If you keep looking and learning, I bet someday you will find that over-looked treasure!
 
A Jeweler or sales professional should not give a sight identification without having the gemological tools to verify the gem's id. Liability wise, its not a smart thing to do. Taking the strand to a gemological lab is the surest way to get an accurate id.

But I agree with the concensus on the thread that the strand is faux.

Donna
 
I want to summarize what I am reading.

Look at it this way. Let's assume they are cultured pearls- what kind could they be?

Not akoyas, akoyas are too small.

Not freshwaters-freshwaters that size (or any other size) with no blemishes and perfect roundness are impossible. period. Freshwaters will often have a bunch of just slightly off-round mixed in with the perfectly round.

South Sea pearls that size and color could run really high maybe $300,000 Dollars. Maybe more because of the uniformity in the shapes and sizes. Also if someone broke such a necklace apart, the clasp alone on a genuine piece that size would be very valuable. It would surely be kept in a pearl box that screams "money", not mixed in with the costume jewelry.

The truth is, there are no real pearls that look like that. Neither freshwaters nor SSP have the crumples. There are no cultured pearls being grown that can look like those.

I see only one choice left- they are faux and quite nice ones at that.
 
And you can still restring them without incurring much expense-- even try your own hand at it-- many of us string our own strands and it's not so hard.

If this interests you, check out the discussion threads in the Lowly Beaders Club forum for information on beading.
 
pwray said:
I don't see any way these could possibly be plastic. I mean, they practically glow in the dark, and not in a plastic glow-in-the-dark sort of way.
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The better faux pearls are made with a nucleus of glass, ?crystal? or mother of pearl (hence the heavy feel of them.) This is coated repeatedly with layers of an iridescent substance to try to resemble layers of nacre. This pearly substance can contain light reflecting guanine crystals, which are extracted from fish scales, or tiny solid particles of different minerals that are similar in size and shape to the aragonite platelets in real pearl nacre. This results in an iridescent effect that looks similar to real pearls. Good quality faux pearls may receive up to 34 coatings of this pearly substance. This would explain why your pearls don?t look or feel like plastic, and why they could ?practically glow in the dark?.
I?m afraid that I agree with most of those who have commented here, that most pearls of that size, if they were cultured pearls, would not have the uniformity of color and perfectly matched round shape without such minor surface flaws as would usually be produced within the mollusc. (Unless they were a one in a million strand ? which would not get misplaced that easily) The drill hole area also looks to me like faux pearls. But very nice ones, and who?s to know? Wear them and enjoy!
 
Nathan Reed said:
I'm 99.99999% sure they're faux, but, if you can bring yourself to do it, crack one open with a hammer and see what it is.
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They're 100% faux. Some members of the discussion may be too polite to say so. I'm not. :p

I had some doubts with the first couple of pics, but these two don't lie:
https://www.pearl-guide.com/forum/a...1-thrift-store-find-too-good-true-pearls2.jpg
https://www.pearl-guide.com/forum/a...89-thrift-store-find-too-good-true-small3.jpg

Faux pearls are very often flattened around the holes, have larger holes, and have defaults around the holes as is the case here.

This, plus what has been mentioned earlier in this thread, plus the nylon line, etc. leaves no doubt.
 
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