Featured Seed Pearl Choker Necklace

I’m beginning to get an idea of what I’m looking for with pearls but could do with some guidance on these please to know what I’m looking at.
Choker length (14.5” end to end)
4 strand seed pearls. Pearls are tiny c2-3mm each bead.
Tiny gold clasp marked LPco London Import mark and a K that I think may be 1965 although it doesn’t really match any exactly.
Are there qualities of seed pearls or are they all the two a penny variety?
Some degree of skill used with the French wire ends and some quality due to the gold clasp but original together or crafter put together
No fineness mark but tests c9ct. Any thoughts please?
Thankyou for looking

 

I could be wrong, but I would call those fresh water pearls. I thought seed pearls are tiny, round pearls.

 

They are baroque rice pearls. Date is London 1984

 

I am not a joolie but I always called those seed pearls.

 

I rest my case re confusion
Are they all of the above?

 

Thankyou

 

Aha, yes.

These aren't usually called seed pearls, they are small and round as you say.

These are called rice pearls due to the shape and size. You can also add on baroque as this signifies they are of irregular shape. That said most rice pearls are somewhat irregular so it is often left out. So here rice=shape/size and baroque=irregular.

 

PRETTY strand, just the same!!!

 

Do most of these strands come from China @Ce BCA? I have a multiple strand with a chinese 14k clasp and thought so but not sure. I feel there’s a gap in my knowledge about these. Thanks.

 

China produces by far the largest amounts of pearls, I think it is something like 95% now. There are still some pearl farms in the USA and Japan, the Japanese ones are high quality and expensive. Tahitian pearls come from French Polynesia, but there are Chinese producers of these as well (type of mollusc used) although they aren't supposed to be call Tahitian..

 

Thanks and also to @KSW for the thread. I see these about but tend not to buy them unless they have a silver or gold clasp.

 

Me too. Only picked these up because of the clasp and very cheap.
I think I struggle with the fact that unless you are an expert or have seen exactly where the pearls have come from first hand it’s anyones guess if they are the expensive ones or cheap and cheerful!

 

It is very hard to tell, if there is no info you can glean from any findings or specific design traits it can be near impossible to if they are Japanese, Chinese or Tahitian. For round pearls then you can check the obvious, the rounder, more even surfaced, matched colour (and for coloured pearls depth of colour) will be better. As you noted gold findings is a good sign, even better if they are set with diamonds for example.

Baroque pearls, well... colour and how they look compared to others I guess. I have a set of pearls that are supposed to be South Sea which had a 5 figure receipt. They have the makers mark on the findings, otherwise there would be no way to tell without a lab check. Lab pearl origin checks also generally cost far more than the item would be worth unless they do turn out to be the best type, so it's not viable to test most pieces.

Here's a link to pearl grading for round cultured:

https://www.purepearls.com/pages/south-sea-pearls-grading

 

This lot are freshwater "rice" pearls for sure, popular here in the 70s and into the 80s. They're never on heavy gold findings and sometimes have costume ones. I've been known to take the lower grade ones apart to scrap the gold, such as it is, and reuse the pearls.

 

Nice strands. I bet that's another shopping channel one.

 

No doubt!.
I very glad that the shopping channel jewellery does nothing for me as I suspect some people get addicted to it. I’ll stick to my charity shop and bargain bin finds!

 

I've had a few bits which are quite nice, those stayed in the Hoard. Never full price of course.

 

Same here. Some of it's nice, but not at those prices. A local charity shop got given some and sold it at a "bargain" of half retail. I pay scrap plus the value of the design, and then cut that by 1/3 for resale. On those pieces ... ten cents on the dollar is about the size of it.