How to distinguish real from artificial pearls

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

On July 11, 1893, Japanese businessman Kokichi Mikimoto took artificial pearls from a pearl oyster for the first time. By that time, these mollusks were on the verge of extermination, and if Mikimoto had not learned to grow pearls on their farms, women could have been left without jewelry with these incredibly beautiful stones (we understand that the word "stone" is applied here conventionally). And today the extreme is different: fakes for natural pearls, and it's good if they are cheap, when the fake can be seen with the naked eye. But it is not always so easy to detect deception. We will tell you how to distinguish stones created by nature from fakes.

1. Assess the unevenness

Let's remember how pearls are formed. For many years in a row, a foreign body that has fallen into a pearl shell is enveloped in layers of mother-of-pearl. And this happens, as a rule, rather unevenly. In addition, the basis of the future decoration - a grain of sand - rarely has the correct shape. The cultured and natural material just seems perfectly smooth. By running your hand over the surface of a natural stone (or by attaching it to your teeth), you can feel the slightest features of its texture and shape.

The smoother the roundness being investigated, the more likely it is that this is a fake.

By the way, if you draw a natural pearl over the tooth enamel, you will hear a characteristic creak.

2. Weigh the pearls in your hand

Focus on the weight of the jewel. Imitation of natural pearls can be very effective. Often, when creating such glass jewelry, dyes with real mother-of-pearl are used, which visually gives fakes an exceptional resemblance to real stones. However, imitation pearls are often made hollow or filled with wax and are therefore quite lightweight. So, hold the pearl in your hand and estimate its weight.

3. Take a look inside

Examine the holes in the beads. To make a necklace out of stones, holes are made in them. The edges of the holes can tell a lot about the true nature of pearls. Looking at a natural stone, you will find the same shiny pearls inside. And where the fake was drilled, there will be chips of the surface layer, exposing the base - plastic or glass.

4. Jumping or not?

Drop the pearl to the floor. The most straightforward way to test pearls is to drop the bead from a height of about half a meter onto a hard, smooth surface on the floor or table. A natural stone, due to its high-density structure, will bounce upward like a ball, while its artificial counterpart will simply roll. I must say that for a natural pearl, this method of testing is not at all dangerous. A fake, especially if it is not of very high quality, can crack (in this case it all depends on the force of the blow).

5. Focus on the price

Look at the price tag. Price does not always mean something (there are extremely expensive branded jewelry), but the main trends are as follows: natural pearls are many times more expensive than fakes. It is too costly to extract the waste products of mollusks. But making balls from plastic or glass is very cheap.

All sorts of promotions promising the consumer to sell pearl jewelry at “ridiculous” prices are just a clever marketing ploy.