"comparable" to the most beautiful of natural pearls?

[steve.ryan]

I have recently purchased a pearl set from a merchant in Kuwait. In
looking into the quality, I tried to check their website to no avail. I
was wondering if you could give me any kind of information on the company
or help me to determine the quality of my set. The company name is
Orquidea. They describe their pearls to be "comparable" to the most
beautiful of natural pearls. Going on to say they use "natural products" to
produce them, so it is almost impossible to distinguish them from the
natural ones. Could you explain what that is suppose to mean?
Thank you for any help you can give.

 

[jshepherd]

Just beads, not genuine pearls

Just beads, not genuine pearls

These are from the Mallorca company.
What you bascially have is a set of high-quality, fake pearls. Mallorca pearls are famous for their quality, but it is the quality of their fakes. Mallorca Pearls are produced on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca which is part of Spain. These 'pearls' have a crystal core, and then are dipped repeatedly in a solution made up partly of fishscales to give the iridescent qualities of genuine pearls.
I do hope the dealer who sold you the pearls did inform you that they were not actually genuine pearls... They are basically a high-quality bead.

 

[jshepherd]

I would also like to say:
I would be very wary buying pearls from this region (Kuwait) unless the pearls are actually from Bahrain. There are no sizable pearling industries in the Middle East other than that of Bahrain. But in Bahrain cultured pearls are not allowed by law, and all pearls originating from this area are sure to be natural pearls.

 

[TievoliJewelry]

We have a couple of strands of the Mallorca pearls in our showroom. They are indeed beautiful, but you are correct, they are fake. They used to be so popular just a few years ago because people could buy these large, perfect looking beads that looked just like gem quality Tahitian and South Sea pearls. I think, however, that their business must be going down because of the 'shell pearls' coming out of China now. While the Orquidea pearls still cost around $200 for a nice strand, you can get shell-pearls from China for about a tenth of that.
I say, leave it to the Chinese to something similar at a lower cost! We cannot even sell Japanese pearls anymore because of the quality of the new Chinese pearls!

 

[Kenji]

I think the best place to buy Mallorca pearls in in Duty Free. I just took Northwest Airlines back from Los Angeles the month before last and saw the Mallorca set for sale on the duty free carts onboard. They were only $99US for a black 3-piece set in 8mm. If only we could produce real pearls for that price!!!