Pearls from philippines

[claude]

Hi there,
I am coming back from a holiday trip in Philippines and I bought several pearls for my gf and family.
These pearls are very beautiful, I showed it to a jewelery in France and they told me they are baroque "tahiti pearl".
But, because they were quite cheap, i am wondering where they really come from !
Could you help me with that ?

Here in picture : 1 bracelet and 2 earrings

 

[jshepherd]

What you actually have are Chinese freshwater pearls. The black ones are dyed.

 

[pearlescence]

Agreed, definately freshwater and not tahitian. I hope they cost only a very few euros as they don't seem to have much lustre

 

[claude]

Tks for reply
I was also thinking about this after reading other post
The lustre of the bracelet is good actually, that is why the jewelery thought they were tahitian.
Is there a test to demonstrate that r died?
Do this kind of pearl are sold in jewelery in Europe???

 

[KarinK]

Hi,

The experts have spoken. These people know pearls! I only want to add that freshwater is my call too because of the oval, potato looking shape. And as they are freshwater pearls, they are dyed as FW do not come in black. It also seems that they are on a wire rather than strung on silk with a knot between each pearl. No pearl of value would ever be sold as a finished piece of jewelry on a wire.

- Karin

 

[Caitlin]

No there is no way a layman can tell if they are dyed by a test, but it is possible to recognize them as freshwater pearls by their shapes. And if they are FW, they are dyed because fw simply don't come in black or any dark color..

Which is not to say that hundreds, if not thousands of people don't try to pass them off as Tahitians! However, the dye, although it can give beautiful overtones just does not look like any Tahitian pearl overtones to a trained eye- and it doesn't take much training, either!

The Chinese dyed pearls have overtones of maroon to rose to pink shades and blue shades to the overtones and Tahitians just don't have those shades.

Freshwater pearls can and do mimic almost any other kind of pearl, esp Tahitians, so hundreds of eBay sellers take advantage of that and either call them "Tahitian black" pearls or just plain Tahitian pearls. Usually, the low price compared to Tahitians is what could be a warning to novices!

 

[dkan 168]

Apart from the shape of the pearls that give them away as CFWP, the colour of the black ones is too uniform to be natural, IMHO. However, as the others have said, the experts have voiced their opinions.

DK