question to experts about FW pearls..

[imanit]

Last weekend I was in Quebec City. There is a store there that sells nothing but pearls. Since there was no clients in the store I chatted with the owner for quite some time. We got into few arguments, but since she is an expert with 20 years of dealing pearls experience and I'm a newbie playing with pearls only 6 years, I backed of..

1) She called dark gray and black FW "natural color"...explaining that there is a special mussel producing darker color pearls that are then irradiated to enhance the color..hence color is natural.. This is not what I call "natural color, but as I said.. I did not argue..

2) Another statement of hers was : almost all Tahitiona pearls are irradiated to enhance the color.. I find it difficult to believe... Please explain.

3) I also would like to know if there is a way to determine just looking at the pearl if it was color treated or irradiated.

4) Finally, the last lesson she gave me was: I should not call the substance that pearl is made of a "nacre".. Nacre is the stuff that shell "lining" is made of.. it's what mother of pearl is made of... pearl is made by totally different secretion...that she had hard time pronouncing, so I did not catch the word..sounded Latin and 15 syllabus long...

Pearl-Guide definition of nacre is :

" Nacre, also known as mother-of-pearl, is a crystalline substance that creates the iridescent visual effect attributed to pearls. Nacre is an organic substance secreted by mollusks over an intruding irritant or implanted nucleus. It is a strong and resilient material that is lightweight and transparent, allowing light to pass through its surface, creating a subtle glow on the pearl’s surface."

so, unless French word " nacre" has different meaning than English word "nacre" ...
I'm confused....

Please !! Put my mind in peace by telling me who is wrong and who is right....

On the positive note: I was thrilled to see a store dedicated to pearls only, showing vast selection of quality, colors and shapes of those pearls. She had round ones up to AAA grade, she had metallic ( beautiful graduated strand( 3-6mm) and another one 7-8mm mixed color), petal pearls, keshis, big yummy fireballs, and all kind of cheaper shapes and sizes. Some mixed with semiprecious stones, some just classic strands. She had some Akoya ( one amazing baroque white ones about 8.5mm with orient to kill for!!) and some lesser quality SS white and gold and Tahitians (barques, nice but not special). I loved her store... and all over she was the first "real person" I met who knew more than I do about pearls.... LoL....

[Lagoon Island Pearls]

1- She's wrong on every point. There are no dark grey or black pearls from freshwater mussels, no less a specific mussel that produces strictly blacks.
2- Wrong again. Tahitians are among the finest pearls in the world. There is no reason irradiate.
3- Someone else here can explain it better than me.
4- Dead wrong. Nacreous is a term for the extracrystalline structure in shells. It's identical in cultured pearls.

Here in Canada, and several places elsewhere, "Natural" is not a term that can be used to describe a cultured pearl in any manner, unless they want trouble with the law.

By the sound of it, you know alot more about pearls than she does.

[pearlescence]

Wrong wrong wrong and wrong. It clearly doesn't matter how long you have been learning about pearls, if you learn wrong info your info is wrong. All that of hers is wrong.
<sigh>

[imanit]

Wrong wrong wrong and wrong. It clearly doesn't matter how long you have been learning about pearls, if you learn wrong info your info is wrong. All that of hers is wrong.
<sigh>

I thought so... This forum was the first place where I started learning about pearls. My knowledge gathered here was confirmed and expanded by my other readings.
I don't consider myself an expert, but I think I know a lot....

What about my question number 3.. I really would like to know...

[pattye]

Ivona,

I'll take a stab at #3~The color of irradiated pearls is in the light gray color range. Such as Dove gray. If dyed, usually upon close inspection or under magnification dye is visible. The peacock and black akoya and freshwater pearls are dyed.

What fun to see all those pearls! You know much more than the store owner!!

[imanit]

Ivona,

If dyed, usually upon close inspection or under magnification dye is visible. The peacock and black akoya and freshwater pearls are dyed.

What fun to see all those pearls! You know much more than the store owner!!

Thanks Pattye.
I thought that black color can be achieved by irradiation too, not only by tinting pearls. I learned something new...

[pearlescence]

question 3 - yes, experience. You can tell from experience/learning what colours of pearls are and are not colour treated etc. also, is the strand uniform in colour.
eg black or dark grey freshwater...that would be a yes, I know that is treated. it cannot be anything but treated. I see bright red pearls and unless my initials are ZE I know that they have to be dyed. Gold SS are tricky. I'm not so experienced so I would ask someone who was (not necessarily the vendor)
That is one of the reasons I'm loving natural colours pearls right now.
This QUebec store person wasn't called Zeide was she....this sounds like some of her creativity

[imanit]

question 3 -
This QUebec store person wasn't called Zeide was she....this sounds like some of her creativity

LoL..... No.. I remember Zeide...

The Quebec store woman really believed what she was "teaching me" about. Her information comes from people who she is buying the pearls from. She did not think that info gathered from the seller should by verified by checking independent sources.
What is making me unhappy, is a fact that she teaches her clients what she knows. Don't get me wrong, lot of what she said I have no problem with, her grading of the pearls was correct, her love of pearls was genuine....I just wish the she was not one of those people that believe that grain of sand starts "wild" pearl.. This she said too .......and also corrected me that I should use term "wild" for non cultivated pearls and "natural" for natural color pearls which include the treated pearls, term that means that they were not colored... Did I confuse you?? LoL.....

[Pearl Dreams]

Sounds like she needs to be pointed to P-G!

[Caitlin]

She was wrong. Irradiation is a treatment. Pearls are made out of calcium carbonate and conchilion, same as MOP but in concentric layers. We all think you know more than she. 20 years of the wrong training will never make an expert in ballet- or pearls!

Natural pearls can or may be called "wild". but natural colors are natural colors, you can't leave the colors off the phrase. It is also against some US govt agencies' (FTC?)policies to call anything else but wild pearls, natural.

[imanit]

Thank you all for confirming what I suspected.

I asked her her email address and offered to send fer some articles showing where I got my "wisdom" from. She declined giving it to me...

It's pity. She seamed really love pearls.. Well, you can not force knowledge onto anybody. Problem is that she is spreading wrong information to her clients and visitors to the store.

[pattye]

Ivona,

You likely planted a few seeds of doubt, sometimes that's the best one can do! It is sad she wasn't more receptive, though.

[jshepherd]

Does she have a Website? You could get a link to this thread to her one way or another. Every point she made was so very wrong, she should find out. She has been lied to, and apparently is inadvertently lying to her customers. That's not good business.

[Isabelle35]

[QUOTE=imanit;86236]I thought so... This forum was the first place where I started learning about pearls. My knowledge gathered here was confirmed and expanded by my other readings.
I don't consider myself an expert, but I think I know a lot...

Yeap, Ivona, that's exactly the "problem" I have 98% of the time I speak to pearl sellers since i'm reading PG (and for a far shorter period than you Ivona; about 6 months). I'm certainly not suggesting i'm an expert eather, but I still know pretty much more than they do!

Again, it's all your fault PG'ers

Since I also go to Quebec city from time to time, I would be interested to know the store's name. I might have a little chat with the owner and leave the PG adress on the counter... Also, I speak french perfectly, in case I have to argue!

[Amrita]

Ivona, your knowledge of pearls is way ahead of that woman's who's been in the pearl business for 20 years. Sometimes, we need to break the false beliefs that people hold on to even though we find it hard, because they always talk about how long they have been at it. That takes courage. You did good by sowing the seeds of doubt in her mind....Now only if she could somehow "chance upon" P-G, and can see what the truth is! :-)