Found on a beach in Italy

Nurial

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Oct 19, 2016
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It's been a few years since i found it and I always just assumed it's a natural pearl and also never thought it could have any significant value. So now I'd like to hear your opinion on this particular pearl.

Some details I've gathered:
I found it few years back on a beach in eastern part of Italy after tourist season, so it could have been lying there for days without anyone noticing

It has a dark green colour (hard to specify further)

Size seems to be close to 16mm

Almost perfect round shape

Has several minor imperfections with one more significant

It has a gritty surface (can even be seen on photos)

Cool on touch
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It really does seem to be a natural pearl, but it's still hard to believe considering its unusual size and fact that finding this piece there in that area had a very low chance

So if that is all true, what value would this pearl have in it's current form and state?
 

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It looks like sea glass to me, too. Broken glass gets tumbled against the sand by the waves, which makes it round. Glass is also soft and will get pitted like that. The green color is a typical bottle green color.

Enjoy your find. I know a couple of people who enjoy finding and collecting sea glass. They keep it in a bowl, just to admire it and run their fingers through it.

Glass has been made in the Mediterranean area for thousands of years. So, it's possible that your marble is very old, although there is no way to really tell.

There were some areas where they knew how to make glass, and they kept their process a secret. So they would sell glass ingots to other areas and show them how to remelt the ingots and make other items like glasses and bowls, but they never gave away their secret of how they made the glass to start with. If a ship sunk with a load of glass ingots, or already made items, then there would be glass all over the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, rolling around and getting sanded down.

Then again, it may also be part of a broken Coke bottle.
 
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It could just be a glass marble which managed to find its way to the sea....
 
I'm guessing a glass marble; the swirl in the first photo looks like blown glass.
 
That is most definitely a marble, and one that did not spend *too* much time in the water. Although not a pearl, it's still fun to find little trinkets like that on vacation.
 
Could this possibly be a discarded piece of Murano glass?
 
OOO, I hadn't thought of discarded Murano glass. Could be.
 
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