Have I finally found my natural seed pearls ?

[FrenchPearl]

Hello everybody,

After reading the story of the beautiful pendant pearl of kyratango, I could not resist to go back to ebay to do some treasure hunting / pearl rescue operation ��
I have been looking for natural seed pearls at a reasonnable price for a while.
Those were sold as "natural seed pearls - old necklace" , nobody bidded but me. What do you think ? They look dirty to me, but legit. I don't have them yet (on their way), so here are the pictures from the seller.
Your opinion on natural or not is welcomed ? And anything you could tell me about the necklace clasp / style

(Will try candling when they arrive, but they seem so small, not sure it will work. By the way, i don't have the size, but i estimate 2 mm)

Thanks in advance
Sophie

 

[Lagoon Island Pearls]

I'd like to see followup candled views and photos, but at first glance these present as tissue grafts.

Several of the nuclei are visible appearing uniform, even square.

Considering the size of the pool, putting oneself in the mindset of the person who made this strand begs a a few questions. Was this strand graded for shape? Definitely not. Size? Maybe. but not necessarily. Color? I'm not so sure either. Luster... we have a match, irrespective of slight color variations.

Grading by luster is the easiest point to pull off when using CFWP. So long as they're shiny and somewhat matched you've got your mythical appearance, but that's all. Mixing flat spots with otherwise round pearls is not a wise thing. It does not add value to poor grades but devalues themselves. Always remember, natural strands are hard to match even when incorporating mismatches.

That said, let's play devil's advocate and consider a small pool of naturals were all they had to work with. If this were true, I'd expect purple spots, mottling and calcitic rounds or off rounds could equally be mixed into the strand focusing on shape, because even calcitic (overmature) can be highly lustrous. Just because a natural pearl is tiny, it's by no means young in every case. Everyone of these pearls appears juvenile. Most often, mixed matches of naturals are drilled and strung by length rather than thickness.

Only exceptional strands lean to color, shape and surface quality combined.

Natural vs CFWP

Luster ----------- 0.0 - 1.0 Consistent with cultured
Shape ----------- 0.0 - 1.0 More common in CFWP, particularily flat spots (mussels) and ringed potatoes.
Inclusions ------ 0.0 - 1.0 Presents with uniform inclusions. (Square tissue grafts)
Matching ------- 0.5 - 0.5 Equal matches are possible, but more consistent with CFWP.
Structure ------- 0.5 - 0.5 Known to be terraced aragonite, consistent with either.
Size -------------- 0.5 - 0.5 Consistent with either.
Color ------------ 0.5 - 0.5 Consistent with either.
Translucency --- 0.0 - 1.0 Consistent with CFWP, all juvenile growth.
Onset ----------- 0.0 - 1.0 Tissue graft.
Nuclear --------- 0.0 - 1.0 More uniform than not. No shell beads present. Tissue grafts visible.

Natural - 2
CFWP - 8

 

[FrenchPearl]

Thank you Dave !
I'm amazed that you could see graft tissue, and of course, that does it for me. I will candle a sample when they arrive , probably another week.
I thought those pearls were quite lustrous, at least as much as some chinese freshwater, and mismatched in luster with some looking quite transparent (i was planning to discard those). But may be it's an effect of the light from the south of France (the recent thread on the " quality of the light" was insightful).
So, i guess i'll have to invest more than 2 tickets of lottery to get my strand of natural seed pearls, but the hunt/ rescue is always fun.
thanks again for your time
Sophie

 

[CathyKeshi]

Sophie, no matter what they turn out to be, they are very lustrous and pretty ... please come back and show us the pearls when they arrive. As it's cold and snowy here, a bit of "south of France" light on the pearls would be an added bonus

 

[FrenchPearl]

Will do Cathy !
I mostly interested in natural pearl, but I must say that your South Sea ring made me pause.... talk about luster ! it's a gorgeous piece !
Best,
Sophie

 

[Caitlin]

I can't tell you how nervous I get if I seem to contradict Dave, but I see this as an opportunity to raid pearl history as a possibility for the kind of pearls these are. While I think they look quite like my grandfather's seed pearls, and thus they could be Persian Gulf pearls according to their rhythm of occurrence of variations in shapes to which I am sensitized having owned so many of these pearls, but.....
I have a new theory to float. From 1907-1914 a Man, Gaston Vives, a Mexican with a world class education, became concerned with the collapse of the mollusk population in the Sea of Cortez, known to us as the Gulf of California. He decided to cultivate mollusks and built these hatcheries in open trenches, then provided sheltered sea beds where the rapidly multiplying mollusks were easy to harvest.
From Strack, p 194,

"from 1909- 1914, approximately 900 TONS of shells were produced each year and between 200,000 and 500,000 pearls of quality were harvested annually.Probably around 8-10% of the mollusks contained pearls

".
Further,

"Gaston Vives visited New York or Paris once a year and sold his pearls directly to the large jewellry houses."

Are these cultured pearls? They were the side product of culturing shell, no attempts were made to culture the pearls. Anyway, we know that the vast majority of natural pearls range from.5mm to 2mm, and there were a lot of them coming on the market - only 1% or so of all the pearls will be gem quality pearls.

So, from an historical point of view, it is LOGICAL to to consider they are Mexican Pearls?

 

[Caitlin]

Actually, I was blown away to discover this. It explains the plethora of pearl jewelry in Mexico in the 1950's when I visited there and even spent a summer in 1957. Bodecia and I used to wonder where those Mexican pearls came from- the Persian Gulf sounded too far fetched for Mexicans to be buying them. She has an eye for Mexican or Oaxacan jewelry and we emailed about it a bit. She may even still have those "Gusano" ("Oaxacan") earrings in her eBay shop.

 

[pearlescence]

They could be freshwater unio mussel pearls...still being found where pearls are an annoying by-product of lunch

 

[Caitlin]

European unios, a lot of which made it to market, were, depleted by the 1900. There was a glut before the fall in Scotland which produced many pearls. According to Strack p 200, in 1865 alone, 12,000 pounds of Scottish freshwaters made it onto the market, so your guess is as good as mine. Freshwater pearls. I wish we knew definitely whether they are fresh or salt water....... They just don't look like recent Chinese cultured pearls to me.

 

[pearlescence]

There are ultra hush hush secret freshwater mussel sites, very protected by law, in Scotland, Wales and England. Not just in one river.
I have a triple strand bracelet of unios from a country outside of Europe. Found by chance, they called to me and I said hello.

 

[CathyKeshi]

Wow, ladies ... such interesting reading today ... Thanks! My favorite line ... "an annoying by-product of lunch" ... feel free to annoy me any lunch time, mussels ...
Sophie, Thank you so much for your kind comments about my new ring. FedEx is being annoyingly slow, sigh ... Husband and I will be taking vacation to the Mediterranean in April, our first visit ... I hope to see some of that lovely light myself

 

[Lagoon Island Pearls]

So, from an historical point of view, it is LOGICAL to consider they are Mexican Pearls?

Yes, even mandatory as to not overlook something. Likewise when something strikes you as familiar, it's reasonable to consider it.

I am not aware of anyone who intentionally produces them culturally or targets them in nature. Many are spontaneous by natural processes and some are incidental to handling. In my harvest history, between 70 and 80 percent are seed pearls and set aside.

I've previously mentioned the mythological appearance of pearl strands. We are ingrained to think how pearls should appear and all to often expect naturals to present like cultured pearls. Sure... some may, but generally lots of natural pearls do not remotely resemble cultured.

They don't appear recent to me either. We have no way of knowing for sure other than by dirt or a clasp and they only speak to provenance (where none exists) and neither of those are scientific considerations.

I've posted two images. One from Pearls of the Week and one from my collection. As you can see, matches are few and far between. In my image, even after high grading the differences are distinct. Out of thousands of natural pearls it's infinitely difficult to match pairs, no less multi-settings or strands. Unless it's an extreme fluke, there is just no way a limited pool of natural pearls would match better. Premium natural strands need a pool of thousands, possibly even tens of thousands. To me, Sophie's strand was picked from a larger pool for luster, with some consideration for size and color. Again... purple, mottling, calcitic and raspberry features are notably absent, when in nature they prevail.

Flat spots are common in mytilids (mussels) and uncommon in pterioids (pearl oysters).

When it comes to culture, what is natural? We only need to think about tigers or whales (for example). They may reproduce naturally, but they are in a cultural setting. It would be a stretch to consider natural conception and birth as anything other than whilst in captivity. The same applies to pearls. Even if a mussel or oyster was handled with kid gloves, relaying it to another site is human intervention which interrupts natural feeding cycles and reintroduces new predators among other things.

I'm not suggesting these are not natural, insomuch as emphasizing the difficulty of identification or their rate of incidence. By and large, seed pearls are a cultural event where only a few rare exceptions exist.

 

[FrenchPearl]

Thank you thank you thank you Dave, Caitlin, Cathy and Wendy

I'm going through a rough time today and reading this thread on my phone, and being distracted by wonderful story of pearls, history of pearls, scientific assumption, etc... has been a precious distraction.
I could not answer, but in my mind, I was talking to all of you.

I know how conservative and scientific Dave is , and he has taught me well over the year including the danger of ebay, and how people can manufacture elaborate fakes. Same with you Caitlin with your posts on your natural seed pearls from the gulf . I must say, that when I saw those, I had a mental match with the picture of your pearls.
That said, those pearls "called to me", and just like Wendy, I said hello to them .

My initial post was quick, and I should have added the following info :
- I paid $43 for this strand including shipping from France -
- the seller is a small seller of vintage jewelry , whose set up is done on such a way, that you can only see his listing if you connect from the ebay.fr. Even with the listing number, I could not find him from the .com site . To me this might be one of the reason why nobody else than me bid on this strand.
- He stated that they were natural, rare ancient jewelery, and looked for. All of his jewelry piece start with a low price so , I think he was hoping collectors would do a bidding war.
- we've often talked how sometimes, pearls were just meant for you ... well, I got busy, missed the deadline, my snip did not work. I contacted him after the closing of the auction, and he graciously accepted to sell them to me as I would have been the only bidder.
He could have just tell me to be on the relisting.

I'll spend more time later tonight to read Dave's post, but wanted to add those info as soon as possible.

http://www.ebay.fr/itm/COLLIER-ANCI...613314?hash=item4af7998502:g:MBYAAOSwbdpWXJYH

Thanks again all !
Best,
Sophie

 

[CathyKeshi]

Sophie, Pearl-Guide is the most wonderful place for respite, education and entertainment to get through a difficult day! Your post and a chat with my daughter have me dreaming of Mediterranean sunlight on our upcoming trip, so thank you as well Please come back with more photos when your pearls arrive.

 

[FrenchPearl]

Thank you Cathy for your kind words.
And of course, I will post pictures when they arrive. But most importantly, we know that only candling (if I manage to do it) will give us additional clues.
The pictures you posted Dave are super helpful. I don't know what purple, calcitic, rasperry feature mean, but I can guess looking at the torsade necklace.
and now I understand better your comment about the luster matching and potential large pool.
So if, they end up natural, they could be better quality than what I initially thought : a strand of small, leftover pearls with a cheap clasp.
My initial idea was to keep only the best pearl and do a bracelet with them. (Btw, Wendy , i would love to see pictures of your unio bracelet).
Now, i'm going to go read the adventure of Gaston Vives

Good night everyone
Sophie

 

[Lagoon Island Pearls]

The pictures you posted Dave are super helpful. I don't know what purple, calcitic, rasperry feature mean

There's some nice nacre on the left, but the others are purple, calcitic (chaulky, less translucent) and raspberry.

 

[Lagoon Island Pearls]

So if, they end up natural, they could be better quality than what I initially thought : a strand of small, leftover pearls with a cheap clasp.

They could be natural, but we'll likely never know. One thing for sure... they're a utility grade, incidental to an otherwise significant harvest.

Mass drilling usually involves drilling flat, not long. If you notice on the image of the torsade, almost all are drilled long. You really need to pay attention to do that. That piece exudes natural in so many ways. It incorporates everything including it's flaws to something quite extraordinary.

By the way Blaire...if your following. Are those SOC?

My initial idea was to keep only the best pearl and do a bracelet with them.

If I owned the torsade, I would not do well to dismantle the strand. Your piece on the other hand would probably grade into smaller sets, quite nicely.

Then again you could do nothing, but enjoy them and their mysteries. I'm sure they'll look and wear wonderfully. Especially with your new earrings.

 

[FrenchPearl]

They could be natural, but we'll likely never know.

Oh no! That does not sit well with me ! I'm still hoping that the candling will offer additional clues

And yes, i will enjoy them and their mysteries, already am in fact.
Will post pictures with the earings I got from you. They will go well together for sure.

Now i'm impatiently waiting for the mail......

 

[Caitlin]

Dave, what pretty pearls! Are they ones you collected? Can you tell us the species the pearls came from?

 

[Lagoon Island Pearls]

Dave, what pretty pearls! Are they ones you collected? Can you tell us the species the pearls came from?

Thank you, yes. They are from California mussels.