In Reply to: freshwater pearls posted by surferboy on Friday, 3. February 2006 at 06:18 Bali Time:
from my understanding are farmed pearls in freshwater as against natural or cultered pearls in the sea - they grow quicker and Asian farmed pearls are also injected with dye to give them the different colours you see in Bali, tradtionally pearls are only either cream or various shades from grey to black depending on where they are south seas, Australian or Tahitian. They are still a real pearl they are just not worth (or valued at) the high price of a natural/cultured pearl - unless you are an expert it is very hard to tell the difference between the two and who can afford $5,000 for a strand of pearls when fresh water ones are around $500 in Aust. I have been buying pearls in Bali for the past 5 years and never had any problems I have had my jeweller check the out when I have come home and some have been valued at lots more than what I paid. If you do a search on Ali Jauhari (that is whom I buy mine from) he is at the beach in Legian and his email if you want to contact him is nammeijaro@yahoo.com. To test if a pearl is real both farmed and cultured you very gently nibble on it with your teeth and it has a slight "gritty" feeling if it is anything else it will feel very smooth. Hope this info helps you