Candling these FW & Akoya Pearls - What am I looking at?

[poppy089]

I've recently dived into the world of pearls and it's become a bit of an obsession. I decided to look at a few pearls under an intense flashlight in a dark room and had a few observations. Wondering if anyone more knowledgeable than beginner me can tell me what I'm looking at?

These were taken with a camera phone and it seems like between holding the flashlight, focusing the phone and pressing the "take photo" button, a third arm would have been very helpful.

The first set is a pair of 8-8.5mm Akoya studs. The pearl on the left is near solid through (for an Akoya; see nucleus photo further down). The pearl on the right is much lighter/translucent with striations - are those residuals from the pinking process? Is it so light because of the bleaching?

I'm also curious about your thoughts on this pair that was sent to me as "AAA" which I don't agree with (supposed to be clean set). Aside from the cluster of bubbling front & centre, the colours don't match each other and this was unfortunately obvious on the ears.

Akoya Regular view:



Akoya Candling (flashlight) - striations on right pearl.


Akoya: It's blurry but you can see the difference and also the shape of the nucleus.




The second set is a pair of 8.5-9mm Freshwaters - the Elite/Freshdama/etc range. It seems like the priority is on the roundness, with no real guarantee on the luster. These are indeed very round. More dense than the Akoyas given they're essentially nacre. The pearl on the left is more consistently solid and glows a darker yellow.

The pearl on the right has these clusters of spots all around. In normal light and in close observation, you can see where the nacre has places of an almost sharp "lip" -- seeing it in normal light is what piqued my curiosity to put a flashlight to it. Do you recognize these formations? Could it be that the right pearl has been tumbled around with some impacts to its nacre?



FW Left pearl vs Right:


FW Right pearl dots - hard to capture.



Even if we're not sure what those are, hope the photos were interesting to see!

 

[molinePDG]

I won't (can't) comment specifically on any other vendor's pearls, but it's important to remember that there is no unifying grading standard for pearls. Unlike diamonds, wherein there is a commonly agreed upon standard (for example, D-Z, fancy colors, etc) that, while not to the same consistency, many grading bodies still utilize, no such thing exists for pearls. Any vendor can declare any particular pearl "A," "AA," "AAAA++" and so forth -- and any of those grades can be defined in any way a specific vendor sees fit.

In short, grading pearls is a mess.

Sometimes, akoya pearls not up to snuff you can see the bead inside of them - they will "blink," but it's hard to tell without seeing anything in person, and again without being able to do that I would never say "that's the thing" about any vendors' pearls.

 

[poppy089]

Thanks Moline. Yes, I do recognize that it's arbitrary and so I'm inclined to check pearls out in person going forwards. The irony for this one was that the Akoya pearls in particular are from one of the big "houses" that warns against the arbitrary ratings everywhere, provides significant education (still much appreciated) and clearly outlined their own standards for each grade they're selling. It's one of the reasons I'm more comfortable posting in this forum rather than in the well-known forum they're involved with. I offered if it could have simply been human error for the pair sent, but their response was that it was acceptable for the AAA price being charged. Because it's a hassle with overseas shipping & returns, this pair and the experience with it was a bummer. Anyway, enough of that.

My curiosity was really if anyone was familiar with the striations in the Akoyas and the oval-ish dot pattern for the freshwaters and to share some photos that might be of interest. I can get pretty nerdy about these things. For the freshwaters, part of my concern is if the patterning indicates anything about the nacre like being prematurely brittle, or maybe an effect from a maeshori heating/cooling treatment. Again, just guesses and was curious if someone more familiar with pearls might know.

 

[Pearlescence]

The striations are stripes in the nacre of the Mississippi river shell which would have been used as the nucleus. Top quality nuclei don't have the stripes but it doesn't really make a difference if the nacre is thick enough to cloak it to all but candling. Blinking is where nacre is so thin (usually because the oyster died) that when the pearl strand is rolled it looks like the pearls are blinking. Pearls which are perhaps just about 0.01mm away from blinking are the ones which turn up regularly on eBay etc.
Pear surfaces can throw up all sorts of lumps, bumps and what the Japanese call 'ganoskin' (a sort of orange peel effect). All pearls get tumbled around as part of the processing. At very least they need to be washed after harvesting which is done in a barrel tumbler. They will also be buffed in walnut shell.
Photos in book.

 

[poppy089]

Thank you, Pearlescence! That was insightful, including the background on blinking.

Do you know if Akoya nuclei are often a standard size (e.g. 6mm), or are there various starting sizes as well (whatever the farmer wishes)?

The dots did look like it had an organic growth pattern to them, so that makes sense.

 

[Pearlescence]

Yes, lots of different sizes. One farm I've visited grows akoya at about 3mm to 4mm, needing a very small nucleus (but they can grow several in one shell)
Depends on what the farmer hopes to grow mixed with the size of the shell being implanted. It's noticeable that even shells which have been grown together can be very different sizes.