[Fai]

Is this a natural pearl? Is this pearl possible from P. Margaritifera? I have x-ray it already and no bead inside.

Many thanks,

Fai

[Valeria101]

Maybe.

If not, the bronze-over-pink/purple color could be of one of those new freshwater pearls everyone is raving about

Got to get paper, methinks. You never know these days...

[Mervione]

No idea, but it looks amazing.

[Caitlin]

It looks like other Chinese cultured FW pearls I have seen offered as singles. The colors are right. I saw some at the gem show offered by US pearl and shell (I think that is their name). Pattye saw them too.

[Fai]

Originally Posted by Caitlin

It looks like other Chinese cultured FW pearls I have seen offered as singles. The colors are right. I saw some at the gem show offered by US pearl and shell (I think that is their name). Pattye saw them too.

Is the FW pearl can reach the size of 16mm?

Thanks,

Fai

[Caitlin]

Yes, the singleleton baroques often reach that size and more. We have a photo of a whole sheet of them from US Pearl somewhere on this forum. Right around Feb 2008- maybe from a gem show thread. We saw it offered on eBay for far more than it was worth and had quite a few posts about it.

[Kevin Canning]

its also worth noting that medical type x-ray is not the correct way to check for a nucleus, it needs to be calibrated for this type of inspection.

[CortezPearls]

I agree with Kevin, but Dental X-Rays can serve this purpose if you don't have a specialized X-ray apparatus on hand. It has helped us on several occassions and it has been quite accurate so far...

[pattye]

Here's where your superior knowledge of what happened in a natural pearl and what that might look like on a less than perfect x-ray is immensely helpful. I doubt very much that I, looking at the same x-ray would be able to interpret properly.

Pattye
so many pearls, so little time

[DrTKStern]

All,

In Celebes and North Borneo, there is a type of oyster which yields natural, irregular pearls of this color. The shell most closely resemblesPterias penguin oyster, with its characteristic spear-like wing. The lustrous pearls are definitely not all mabe, as suggested in several reference books.

The pearl in question may be Fresh Water, like those mentioned that were put up for sale on ebay, but may be Pterias.

Tom Stern,MD