just back from the philippines

[bullet]

hello i just got back from the philippines and was given these pearls,i tried to get good pics but i just dont have a camera that will get good closeup,so i will post the best one i got for now and maybe someone can help me to know what these are.i was told they are natural pearls. next weekend i will get much better pics,thanks

[Caitlin]

We need bigger pictures to see what you have, but , I am so sorry to say this, there hasn't been a natural pearl sold in the Philippines for over 100 years. Those sellers at Greenhills and other places will tell buyers anything they think the buyers will believe.

In the 8 years I have been on this guide, maybe once did someone get something other than freshwater pearls in a philippine market. They sell freshwater pearls and tell fantastical lies. You can get real South Sea pearls but you have to know what they look like or you will get 'baby south seas', whivh are really freshwater pearls, all from China.

I hope you prove me wrong!!

[bullet]

yeah i know need better pics i will try to borrow my friends camera this afternoon. a little more about these,some of my wifes family lives on the coast of mindanao island,i did not buy these from any seller,i was given them by the divers family. but having said that ,you never know what you will get in the philippines,lol

[jshepherd]

What you have there are Chinese freshwater pearls. The settings are difficult to see from the photos, but look like the type you find at Shanxiahu, similar to this.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Stunning-Sil...item256f0845b5

[bullet]

aw i see,yes they look very much like the ones i have,even the hook on the hasp is the same,i will try to getter much better pics soon as i can,thanks

[Caitlin]

I read somewhere that some of the old time tribal divers work for the big pearl companies, but in any case so many large pearls and so round pearls would cost many many and many thousands of dollars if they were natural! The family wanted you to go away with a dream, so what if it isn't true, it is nice to believe it is.

[pattye]

The white ones may be freshwater mabes. Are they set in sterling silver? Is the metal marked 925 or sterling?

[coabadsantos]

Definitely Chinese freshwater pearls. The settings are rhodium plated base metal from China.

[perlinda]

Agree with coabadsantos. That kind of settings are very common here too in Indonesia.

[jshepherd]

I saw them in most of the souvenir shops in Vietnam as well, being sold as Vietnamese akoya jewelry.

[GemGeek]

It just occurred to me that maybe bullet might have meant natural as opposed to imitation. Maybe that is what the giver meant. ???

[KarinK]

It just occurred to me that maybe bullet might have meant natural as opposed to imitation. Maybe that is what the giver meant. ???

I have the same thought. It seems to me already with my limited experience that people - not knowledgeable about pearls - call pearls "natural" to indicate that they have been inside an oyster.

Most people have no idea about the proces works or the difference between cultured and natural pearls. I also find that people will call a pearl "natural" when they want to say that the color is natural.

- Karin

[GemGeek]

Exactly, Karin! 99% of people at large would have no idea that natural referred only to non-cultured pearls. I really think the natural pearl people are doing themselves a disservice by insisting that "cultured" precede the word pearls, since very few people understand that natural pearls are more desirable. There ought to be some new nomenclature to recognize natural pearls so that they would be better understood in the market and recognized for their extreme rarity.

(Right now the FCC states that using the word pearl by itself denotes natural.)

[Alison]

The rules are that you can use the word 'genuine' with cultured pearls, but never natural -- unless it directly modifies the color term. So, 'natural pink pearls' legally means something entirely different from 'pink natural pearls.' Of course, hardly anybody knows this and the term 'natural' is misused all the time. The only alternative I know of is to call natural pearls 'wild,' as opposed to 'farmed' for cultured pearls. Most people know the difference between, e.g., wild and farmed salmon, so that might help!

[pearlescence]

As a deviation to this re vietnamese sellers, I was once doing some selling for a couple of weeks opposite a vietnamese woman selling many paintings. She told everyone they were the work of her brother (even though they were clearly the work of many artists) and the painted scarves were done by her sister. She sold hardly anything because this blatent nonsense detered many who might have bought had she been more straightforward.