How To Tell If Pearls Are Real Or Fake – Part VI
Ben Johnson of Seabourn Pearls
These articles will help you determine if pearls are real or fake. They’ll teach you how to recognize quality and how to buy smart.
The links below take you to the first five articles in the series.
Part I: The tooth test and other tools, tips and tricks for knowing if a pearl is real or fake.
Part IV: Pearl Processing, Artificial Enhancements and Deliberate Misrepresentation
Part V: Dye Jobs and Color Enhancements
Part VI – Sellers love to give faux, fake and imitation pearls misleading names. These names are often branded and are given to disguise the product and confuse consumers about what they are buying. This list and some of the information contained is borrowed from The Pearl Book by Antoinette Matlins. Antoinette’s book is one of the most authoritative publications on pearls. If you love pearls buy it.
Atlas Pearls - These are polished satinspar gypsum beads. They are fake pearls in every way and should not to be confused with pearls from Atlas South Sea Pearl Ltd., an Australian company that produces South Sea pearls.
Cave Pearls
Cave Pearls – Cave pearls are kind of cool. They’re formed in limestone caves when calcite crystallizes around a grain of sand or some other nucleus. Water rotates the nucleus to allow concentric coatings of calcite. The “pearl” sinks and is polished to a gloss by a steady flow of water. Cave pearls lose their gloss and degrade or fall apart when removed from water. A neat little novelty but not worth much.
Kultured Pearls – Krab with a “K” is usually pollock formed and colored to look like real crab. Guess what “Kultured Pearls” are? If you said fakes, bully for you!
Laguna Pearls – Not to be confused with the reputable Beverly Hills retailer by the same name, be aware of a line of fake pearls marketed under this name. They should be identified as “imitation pearls.” If they are not the seller is being deceptive.
La Tausca Pearls – La Tausca Pearls date back to the early 1900′s. They are imitation pearls that became well known for their presentation boxes. The boxes were usually silk-lined brass with fancy scroll, flower and filigree engravings and adorned with fake gems, rhinestones or shell cabachons. The boxes are typically more valuable than the pearls and fetch prices up to about $300. The pearls look old and can be convincing but La Tausca Pearls are fake.
Majorica Pearls – Majorica or Mallorca Pearls are glass beads with a lacquer coating that features ground fish scales. The glass gives these “pearls” a convincing weight and coolness. Marketing efforts surrounding these products are deliberately deceptive. They can be rather nice but should always be rather inexpensive. Read more here.
The REAL Thing. 32" Strand of 12x13MM Natural Color Tahitian Pearls. Round, Near Flawless. $23,000
Nautilus Pearls – Most “pearls” sold as Nautilus Pearls are the polished shell from the innermost chamber of the Nautilus mollusk. They may also be sold as “Shell Mabe” pearls. There are, however, rare and valuable true Nautilus pearls that are very white calcium accretions. The best have a sort of concave eyeball shape with a flame pattern on the surface. If your eye can’t tell the difference your wallet will know instantly.
Red Sea Pearls – Polished beads made of coral
South Ocean Pearls – These are imitation pearls with a mother-of-pearl core. In my experience “pearls” sold under this name tend to be marketed in extremely shady and deceitful ways. If I was naked with my hair on fire and the guy selling these pearls had a blanket and a fire extinguisher I would still run out of the store.
Semi-Cultured Pearls – Lousy pearls coated in a pearlescent lacquer. Costume jewelry.
For more information on pearls – real or fake – contact us at anytime. We’d be thrilled and delighted to help you.