Pearls: cultured vs natural

[widget]

Hi...a couple of questions have cropped up in the "heirloom" thread..

!. How old does a piece of jewelry have to be before you can pretty safely assume that the pearls in it are natural? I read somewhere they started culturing pearls around 1900, but that seems late to me...

2. Is it true that you can have your dentist x-ray old pearls for you to see if they''re natural? Could a layman tell by looking at xrays? or would you still have to take them to a gemologist?

Thanks!
widget

 

[JCJD]

Hooray! Thanks for starting this for us widget!

You mentioned in the heirloom thread that royalty were the only ones who could afford natural, not cultured

pearls. Well, my great-grandmother's second husband (my step-great-grandfather) held the equivalent position of Prime Minister in Denmark. So, perhaps the chances are even higher that my pearls are natural!

Edit: Not Prime Minister, I've been corrected. He was a high government official of some sort though.

 

[valeria101]

Date: 5/20/2005 2:15:04 PM
Author:widget

1. How old does a piece of jewelry have to be before you can pretty safely assume that the pearls in it are natural? I read somewhere they started culturing pearls around 1900, but that seems late to me...

As far as I know, pearl cultue started earler (late 1800) but production remained relatively scarce until 1920s. So that 1900 date is a good hint but no absolute proof. To make things worse, pearls may have been replaced or added to old jewelry. Given the value of these things, it should be worth testing large pearls..


2. Is it true that you can have your dentist x-ray old pearls for you to see if they''re natural? Could a layman tell by looking at xrays? or would you still have to take them to a gemologist?

Yeah... you can use medical Xray to take pictures of pearls. The cultured ones with thin nacre are harder to ID because they just show an even mass just like the naturals. The resolution of those pictures is not always good enough to distinguish the nucleus of natural pearls or the very thin nacre of some cultured pearls. AT least it is easy to tell when results are inconclusive

my 0.2...

 

[valeria101]

Date: 5/20/2005 2:30:02 PM
Author: JCJD

You mentioned in the heirloom thread that royalty were the only ones who could afford natural, not cultured pearls.

Not that this changed... and neither did the stock of natural pearls for what I know.

Those earrings look fantastic !

 

[JCJD]

Thank you! They are large, so I''ll definitely be checking them out. I''ve got a cool dentist.

 

[Translucent]

I happen to have access to a dental office(I''m the manager)!! And I can tell you that NO, you cannot tell the size of the
nucleus or if the pearl is natural by using dental X-rays. Not even a Panorex machine will give you the results you want.

Certain well known gem labs have a specialized x-ray machine for pearls. The corner gemmologist will not have one either.

Some experienced pearl dealers can tell by handling the pearls, which are natural and which are not. These experienced
people are far and few in between too.

Finding a natural pearl of good size is comparable to finding a Kashmir cornflower sapphire.