Identifying Natural Pearls

It's a Difficult Distinction!

In the past, there have been many efforts and devices invented in the hope of identifying Natural Pearls from Cultured Pearls. None have been positively conclusive.

Grading Pearls on the other hand, is a relatively straight forward process, however because there are so many different types of pearls, determining if it's a true wild Pearl can be extremely difficult. There are some tests you can do at home that will give you a pretty good indication though.

Before the 1920's when Mikimoto Pearls came onto the scene, Pearl Jewelry was set with either Natural Pearls or fakes. Pearl cheats have been around for centuries, they were just more discreet about it back then.

The point is, Antique Jewelry, made before the 1920s may contain Natural Pearls. Settings will also provide some identification clues but we'll cover this shortly.

The jewelry industry's standard manual on the identification of Natural Pearls, states that the distinction between natural pearls and cultured pearls is the industry's most difficult distinction. Even for the gem experts!

A general confusion, even among experts, when identifying Natural Pearls has endured for approximately 100 years since the introduction of Cultured Pearls. On the other hand, identifying cultured pearls from their imitations is not as difficult.

Many jewelry customers, worldwide have hardly any acquaintance with Natural Pearls. They have never developed 'an eye for a pearl' as most have never owned any.

If you love the substance that you are working with, you will soon develop an affinity for Pearls. When you reach that point, the Pearl speaks to you. The scientific way to determine true Pearls from Cultured is by X-ray examination.

Natural Pearl Jewelry is acquired mainly from estates and many Natural Pearls, singly or in necklaces remain in private hands.

Embellished with enamels, rubies, diamonds, a single sapphire, and marine pearls, lots of them, all natural pearls, adorns the crown of Emperor Rudolf II, that dates to circa 1602!

The Imperial Scepter of Austria was made by the court goldsmith Andreas Senbruck in 1612 and echoes the decorative design of the crown and is embellished with natural pearls and a single blue sapphire.

For old information on pearls click here.

The Thickness of the Nacre is the Key in Identifying Natural Pearls.

Sometimes pearls are loose in the shell and roll out easily. Compared to a miniature moon, a true Pearl has a hidden glow, a cold flame, and is a living beautiful jewel with a soul of its own.

A simple method in identifying Natural Pearls is by checking the thickness of the nacre layers.

You can do this by rolling a strand of pearls on a white surface under a strong light. Thin skinned Pearls will wink at you. They will appear brighter and darker as the Pearl is rotated. The winking is the bead showing through the nacre. Winking Pearls are usually not Natural Pearls.

Candling is another method to identify Natural Pearls. The Pearl is held over a concentrated light source or placed on the lens of a flashlight. A maglight is perfect for doing this test. In thick skinned Pearls the bead will appear as a dark round smudge. A series of parallel stripes will be present in thin skinned pearls. These stripes are growth layers. Pearls with these striations have very thin nacre and will therefore not be Natural Pearls.

Another simple test to help in identifying natural pearls comes to us from the pearlers themselves who dived for Pearls! I also had to dive deep to find this Natural Pearl test. The Touch test.

The old pearl divers didn't call Natural Pearls, "cold flames" for nothing. If the Pearl is a Natural Pearl it will be cool to touch.

The touch test is a particularly useful test in identifying natural pearls set into an antique ring setting as here you will not be able to check the drill-hole for nacre thickness or perform the winking test that is useful for a strand of pearls.

If you have a strand of Pearls you think maybe natural, examination using a jewelers loupe 10x is not conclusive enough, it will be money well spent to have your pearls x-rayed by a gemological laboratory.

Another Natural Pearl test is called the sun test. This test involves taking the strand of Pearls out into the sunlight. Unless they are very, very expensive, genuine Natural Pearls won't be perfectly matched under the sun. You will be able to see variations in their size, shape and color. If the Pearls are perfectly matched for size, shape and color they will not be Natural Pearls.

Natural pearls are less transparent than Cultured Pearls. If you place a Natural Pearl against a dark background—like a box lined in black cloth—and put it under a strong light, the natural pearl will look like a small, white, homogenous ball with no discernible inner rings. When you do the same to a Cultured Pearl, you will see a thin brown line between the nacre layer and the nucleus of the Pearl.

Another way to help in identifying Natural Pearls is by examining the Setting. If you see a Picasso in someone's home, you can be pretty sure it isn't the original piece of artwork. Similarly, you can gain valuable clues about a Pearl's authenticity by looking at its surroundings.

Natural pearls will have settings of gold, silver, or platinum. The setting will of course pre-date the 1920's. The setting rule is not a rule set in stone; many high quality Cultured Pearl necklaces will have high quality settings. Even so, the setting and the age of the jewelry will provide clues to help you reach a conclusion.

If still in doubt, instruments used for testing is the pearl microscope (pearlometer) but the most efficient tests are by means of the endoscope or a modern X-ray test called a SKIAGRAM or for undrilled Pearls, the lauegram.

However, sometimes identifying Natural Pearls from cultured Freshwater Pearls is nearly impossible. Sometimes you can't tell the difference and even X-raying the Pearls does not help. The nucleus, whether inseminated or naturally occurring will decompose and usually leave a small void inside the pearl.

Natural Pearls can be almost any color, with rosy pink pearls and gold pearls at the top of the scale to jet black and blue-black or green-black that are very rare and highly prized. Oriental Pearls had a softer brilliance than the Australian Natural Pearls which were mostly white. While Persian Gulf Pearls remain one of the most sought after types of natural pearls in the world.

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