Real pearls

A couple coworkers and I were out picking in an old house today. The original part was built in 1920, with a kitchen as a later addition.
The man said no one had been in the house in 30 years.
He recently let some people in, so it was picked over, but we got some pretty good stuff..

There were a few jars and bags of old costume jewelry.
Some of them contained 14k, 10k, and sterling class rings, various other gold and silver rings and watches...
some of it was junky, some pretty nice...

There were a bunch of fake pearls, real light to hold, chippy, perfectly round..

But there was one set..
They were not perfectly round and each held a different shape.
They weren't knotted, but on a twisted waxed looking string. They weren't white either, more of a off white pinkish color, but no chipped areas.

I was at a red light when I looked at them so Im going off quick memory.

They were especially dirty so no one wanted to run them on their teeth, lol

They went home with my coworkers so I didnt get a picture, wish I had though.
Ive never really looked at real pearls enough to compare, so I was wondering if someone could show me a close up of theirs.

Would cultured take on a different shape than natural?

 

Natural pearls are pearls untouched by human hands until harvested. They start as a grain of sand and the oyster puts gunk around it. The longer it stays in the oyster the bigger it gets. They come in all shapes and sizes and a fair number of colors. Cultured pearls start with a bead of some kind, the good ones are shell, that's introduced into the oyster. The pearl that grows starts with that shape. Chinese freshwaters are often lumpy and bumpy and have uneven nacre as often as not. They come dyed all sorts of colors that don't appear in nature. These days they also make fake pearls in the odd shapes, often called "baroque", so it's hard to say what your coworker scored.

 

Chinese freshwaters are also cultured, btw. I forget what makes them uneven, but they generally are. If your coworker was blindingly lucky, he or she found Mississippi or Tennessee freshwater pearls or ... conch pearls. The latter are generally sold individually and are worth a small mint.

 

Sounds like baroque pearls.
Take a look at this site, I didn't read it all just parts of it.

https://www.pearlsonly.com/blog/what-are-baroque-pearls-and-how-valuable-are-they/

 

Interesting! There are definitely some pictures of the baroque pearls that look very similar.

Thanks!

 

They werent as pink an conch pearls, Tennessee pearls look flatter or longer, the Mississippi pearls look a little like them, but I dont really know enough about them to know if Im right or wrong

 

Personally, I would love to see pics of the old costume jewelry.

 

Baroque pearls:

 

These are them.
She said she thinks she saw a knick in one of them, so, idk.

I don't have pictures of anything else right now.

 

Wow, MOS - Those are CRAZY! I've never seen anything like them before.

 

Since I'm seeing a "hidden" clasp on the pearls, they're probably costume. I've never seen that done on the real deal.

 

Agreed. I've a similar necklace somewhere which is Monet.

 

Krementz:

 

Here's a link that shows the baroque pearl figures in the Green Vault (Grünes Gewölbe), Dresden.

http://www.alaintruong.com/archives/2013/08/26/27899124.html

 

Just popped in to recommend this site for anyone that wants to know what kind of pearls they have:

http://www.pearl-guide.com/

There's a section called "What Kind of Pearls Do I Have?" where you can post pearls and people give their opinions on what they have. I posted there a month or so ago and a couple of people replied within 24 hours.

You have to sign up, and there are instructions on how to photograph your pearls (natural light on a white background, if I recall correctly). I'm going to keep them in mind for future use as I know zip about pearls.

There's also a lot of information on the different kinds of pearls on that site.