Identifying Cultured Pearls

Approximatly 2.5 million strands of pearl imitations, enter the market each year, including 20 mm faux pearls, fake black pearls and faux graduated pearls. Just how many of those 2.5 million "pearl- buyers" were aware that their "cultured" pearls were really pearl imitations, is really anyone's guess.

What Is An Imitation Pearl Anyway?

Early pearl imitations involved coating the inside of blown glass spheres with a mixture of ground fish scales and varnish, then filling them with wax. Paris remained the major producer of these types of pearls until the 19th century.

A helpful discussion thread on identifying Majorica Pearls from other types of pearls, can be found Here...

Art Deco Jewelry may include cultured pearls, because it was around the Art Deco era that Mikimoto pearls first hit the market.

Although you may find your jewelry retailer has the best intentions, many jewelers and antique dealers are not qualified in identifying pearls. Therefore, it really does pay dividends to Read up on the subject of Cultured pearls first.

On the other-hand, if you are certain your pearls are Genuine Cultured Pearls, you may like to ascertain their Quality. The Quality of pearls is established through a grading process. Click here for information on grading cultured pearls.

One of the things, that you won't run into, for example, like when you're identifying signed costume jewelry or identifying hallmarks on antique gold jewelry, is that the mother-of-pearl oyster, never signs her work! When identifying cultured pearls from imitation pearls you have to look for other clues....

The Tooth Test

The best-of-the best imitations are the Majorica pearls. Sometimes, it seems almost impossible to tell the difference between the well-made glass and plastic imitation pearls.

Find out more about Pearl Imitation Here... from genuine cultured pearls, such as Mikimoto pearls.

When you're in any kind of doubt about identifying cultured Pearls, a good piece of advise is to "follow-the-drill-hole."

The pearl imitation will generally look rougher around the edges of the bead at the drill hole than around the drill-hole of a genuine cultured pearl. There will be no nacre layer next to the bead and the really tacky fakes are easy to identify as they appear as reamed out plastic or painted beads.

The mass-produced imitation pearls literally, leave their own distinguishing hallmark around the drill hole. Other tell-tales signs are unevenness and rough formations. This is due to the lack of finish applied to the manufactured pearl.

As a counter example, Akoya pearls will appear clean and smooth around the drill hole, in the light.

No drill hole through the pearls on your antique jewelry brooch? One of the best ways of identifying cultured pearls when there is no drill-hole, is to literally "bite" the pearls. This old testing method is called, the "tooth-test"!

Gently does it... run the pearl across the surface of your teeth. Glass and plastic will feel smooth across the enamel on your teeth. The faux strands will feel like nail polish feels on your nail when you rub it against the bottom edge of your tooth. Cultured pearls on the other hand will have a very fine gritty feel to the tooth.

Identifying Freshwater pearls, (which are not fakes) from cultured pearls on the other hand is much more difficult because freshwater pearls are non-nucleated (which means they are not cultured in the same way as cultured pearls like the Akoya) and to further complicate the process of identifying freshwater cultured pearls, the Chinese have more-or-less perfected the art of freshwater pearl farming.

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