" Natural" freshwater versus cultured China pearls on ebay

[CLICLASP]

Hello PG friends.
I came accross this one :
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...3#ht_972wt_964

So I asked :
"How do you know that the pearls are not cultured?
Since the cultured freshwater pearls have no nucleus, neither have the fine pearls that are not cultured, so I wonder how it can be stated that they are fine pearls.
"

and the reply was :
"Those new type of pearls are normally hollow and light weight.
A couple of the pearls have inward reaching surface inclusions and I have also put most of the pearls under 60x magnification to get through the drilling in order to varify that the nacre goes all the way through.
That's also on top of the guarantee from the previous owners of this piece (I get a lot of my estate pieces from David Webb left overs in NY).
And finally, this piece is cheap enough to just figure out the clasp by itself and the pearsl for free hahahahaha...That's why I bought it for stock."

Thanks for comments

[jshepherd]

They aren't natural pearls. They are Chinese freshwater. Nothing in his response would indicate natural pearls. Cultured aren't hollow or lightweight (unless they are souffle), and most inclusions are inward reaching. Nacre does go all the way through with nearly all Chinese freshwater pearls, and they are clearly Hyriopsis and not marine pearls.

It's sad to see the length people go on eBay...

[pearlescence]

They look like natural COLOUR potatoey baroques, probably about $30 tops in HK wholesale. Badly strung too, lots of play. nice colours and lustre but very marked surface with some huge craters and divots
on the response..how can you have NEW naturals. Naturals are naturals and have been for many thousands of years. They aren't bead nuked but tissue nuked
I don't know much about diamonds - are there synthetic diamonds? because the listing says those are natural too
I suspect that there is a crossed wire - they may have been sold as natural colour and bought as natural...?

[Lagoon Island Pearls]

They cannot be natural pearls.

Reading between the lines, they are interchanging the term "untreated" for natural.

[Bodecia]

I agree, not natural by any means. Maybe the seller was tricked but I doubt it. There are so many necklaces advertised on eBay now as Natural which of course they aren't. I asked one seller of so called sellers what he meant when he said "natural pearls" and he replied very sarcastically that natural meant that they were real pearls and faux meant were imitation.

Felt like having an augument with him about this but just couldn't be bothered. Some sellers seemed to have realised that calling pearls naturals brings more people to there sites but this ofcourse only fools those that know little about pearls.

If these were sold to someone that could tell the difference they could get their money back via PayPal but ofcourse anyone that knows anything about pearls would laugh or snort and make sure they did not go to that site again.

You are so right Wendy, any naturals listed on eBay cannot possibly be new. Stands to reason. But newbies to pearls could easily be fooled.

Dawn - Bodecia
http://www.ebay.com/sch/dawncee333/m.html
eBay Seller ID dawncee333 and natural pearl collector and all round pearl lover

[pattye]

So overpriced and completely disgusting.

[jshepherd]

They cannot be natural pearls.

Reading between the lines, they are interchanging the term "untreated" for natural.

They also specifically state that the pearls are not cultured. Maybe they don't know that they are breaking the law, but they are committing fraud.

You should just send them a link to this thread.

[dkan 168]

Regardless of the pearls being truly natural or not, I cannot see a clasp that is worth 1.8k USD!!!

I personally do not believe they are natural, and that they are undyed natural-colour baroque CFWPs.

DK

[Amanda]

It's sad to see the length people go on eBay...

Their moral equivalents were flogging bits of the "true cross" and the "thumb bone of St. Idiot" in the Middle Ages......

[Caitlin]

funny, Amanda!