Freshwater or saltwater pearls?

moonlightpearls · Dec 7, 2025

Hello,

My mom wants me to help her restring and knot on 18K clasps these three pearls strands she bought at a jewelry center in Shenzhen. She had them finished with a s925 clasp in China because she didn’t want to buy the clasps there. She has a trusted jeweler here that she buys her gold clasps from.

These pearls feel gritty and the white ones are sized from 11-14/15 and the gold is around 10-11. These were sold to her as saltwater SSP but I’m curious if they actually are.

If there’s any tips on how to spot the difference between freshwater and saltwater please let me know! I’ve been searching google but still cannot tell, so I thought to ask the experts here.

pattye · Monday at 11:29 AM

Welcome, Moonlightpearls. To me, both of these strands appear to be cultured freshwater pearls. The gold ones appear to be dyed. I don't know what price she paid, but genuine round SS strands like this would likely be up from $10,000 each.
What makes me feel these are freshwater are the luster, slightly oval shape on both strands, possible dye spots on the goldens. Hopefully your Mother will enjoy wearing these statement strands with their new clasps.

BWeaves · Wednesday at 2:16 PM

They look like Chineses bead nucleated freshwater pearls to me, too. I have a strand similar to the white strand, and the surface and luster look like my freshwater pearls and not like my South Sea pearls. The yellow ones look dyed to me, too. I agree with Pattye. If these were real SS pearls, they would be several 10's of thousands of US dollars. If she paid around one thousand dollars for these (more or less), then they are freshwater pearls from China.

As far as tips on how to tell the difference between freshies and SS? You just have to look at a lot of pearls and know for sure what they are. Then it becomes easier to guess on strands where you don't know what they are.

Freshwater or saltwater pearls?

moonlightpearls

New Member

Attachments

pattye

Pearl Scholar

BWeaves

Well-known member

Similar threads