Really good fake pearls?

[Sattua]

Yesterday, as I was having lunch at the local Panera, a group of three women sat at a table near me. Two of the three were wearing the most dazzlingly lustrous pearls I've ever seen--like, incredibly high quality saltwater pearls.

Problem? This is a small city in Cow Country. Nobody wears things that are that expensive. I had felt like the queen of the hill with my middling freshwater pearls.

All of the fake pearls I have seen have been pretty dull; is it possible that there are high quality, incredibly lustrous fake pearls?

[UrbanChic]

It doesn't really matter where you live, spend the money on quality, genuine pearls. You can wear them to weddings, out to dinner with your significant other or to a job interview. No town's too small for real pearls.

I realize I didn't answer your questions, but I couldn't help myself.

[Maastricht]

I bought freshwater cultivé pearls and felt wonderful in them, but when I asked my frined who doesn't know about pearls which she liked better, she chose the my fake ones. So much for impressions.

Anyway, Ebay has an abundance of pearls, often from China, which IMHO offer very good quality for that price.

[samclem]

Originally Posted by Sattua

Yesterday, as I was having lunch at the local Panera, a group of three women sat at a table near me. Two of the three were wearing the most dazzlingly lustrous pearls I've ever seen--like, incredibly high quality saltwater pearls.

Problem? This is a small city in Cow Country. Nobody wears things that are that expensive.

Bolding mine-sc

You got a Panera in your town and you think it's still some trailer park?

Money exists all over.

[Sattua]

I know that money exists all over, but that doesn't mean people wear saltwater pearls and fur coats all over. I've lived in this kind of setting my whole life, and this is the first time I can remember seeing pearls that shone like that in this setting. These were either the very best pearls available, or some kind of ultra-luminous fake. What I'm asking is, are there fake pearls that look that good, because the department store variety look like plastic.

[samclem]

Yep, there's some mighty good fakes out there. Always has been. But most people who buy fake get crap.

I buy diamonds,gold, pearl, etc, along with coins, for a living.

We see lots of fakes that were purchased in the Orient from the 1940's/50's/60's etc that are pretty good. And they still make them today.

But why couldn't they have been wearing real pearls?

[Sattua]

I am trying to establish if they could have been fakes, by asking if such good fakes exist and are readily available.

The reasons that I don't automatically accept them as real are:
1. Such "good" jewelry is usually, in this place, reserved for special occasions, which lunch at Panera is not
2. The women in question didn't look rich enough or bright enough to flout this rule; they were also all quite young
3. They weren't wearing anything else at all expensive; their clothes were on the level of Old Navy career wear
4. The density of it struck me, too. Two of the three women were wearing the necklaces. This suggests to me that they were purchased at practically the same time and place. Maybe one of the mall stores got in a bunch of lustrous fake pearls?

Believe me, it was bizarre, or I wouldn't have brought it up here. The women's age, clothes, and circumstances were completely discordant with expensive jewelry. If the necklaces were real (and I am apparently never going to know for sure), then something is happening with the town's economics and this is the first sign of it.

[samclem]

Originally Posted by Sattua

I am trying to establish if they could have been fakes, by asking if such good fakes exist and are readily available.

The reasons that I don't automatically accept them as real are:
3. They weren't wearing anything else at all expensive; their clothes were on the level of Old Navy career wear
.

Around Akron, Ohio, where I live, if you got enough money to shop at Old Navy, you have enough money to buy real pearls. Your mileage obviously differs.

[Corrvin]

Originally Posted by Sattua

I am trying to establish if they could have been fakes, by asking if such good fakes exist and are readily available.

The reasons that I don't automatically accept them as real are:
1. Such "good" jewelry is usually, in this place, reserved for special occasions, which lunch at Panera is not
2. The women in question didn't look rich enough or bright enough to flout this rule; they were also all quite young
3. They weren't wearing anything else at all expensive; their clothes were on the level of Old Navy career wear
4. The density of it struck me, too. Two of the three women were wearing the necklaces. This suggests to me that they were purchased at practically the same time and place. Maybe one of the mall stores got in a bunch of lustrous fake pearls?

Or maybe the women were related, or all married to friends, and one family member had given them all pearls as a Christmas gift?

Not everyone goes to "special occasions" very often-- my grandmother didn't go to big parties or out in the evening (even to eat) so she wore the pearls my grandfather gave her to work, or out shopping. I'm sure someone thought HER pearls were fake, because of her casual dress, but they weren't. My grandfather loved her very much and had the money to buy her real pearls to show it.

I don't own any real pearls myself, but I've heard that they look much nicer if they're worn on occasion-- I'd certainly wear mine to lunch every now and again. Or to bed.

[Sattua]

Originally Posted by samclem

Around Akron, Ohio, where I live, if you got enough money to shop at Old Navy, you have enough money to buy real pearls. Your mileage obviously differs.

Obviously.

Corrvin's idea that they might have all been related is an interesting one. Assuming the pearls were real, my next best guess is that they were the wives of lawyers who buddy around and shop at the same jeweler, who suddenly decided to push pearls. I am going to keep my eye out for more; my car has to go into the shop again tomorrow, which means another lunch at Panera.

There are a gaggle of Ladies Who Lunch in this town, though usually in a different restaurant. I have observed them many times--they are both older and richer than these women were, and they don't wear pearls.

[Athena]

One of the nice things about pearls is that they can be worn with casual dress.

I rarely dress up. I work at home about half the time, so normal workday clothes for me is sweatpants and a t-shirt. When I do go in to work, it's casual - most days I wear jeans, about as dressed up as I get are those long Mexican skirts with a top. I've worn my pearls with the jeans before.

[lskinner]

I remember spending time in a little town in Southeast Asia where all the women down to the poorest families, wore expensive pearls, gold and diamond jewelry, etc.

[vetbridge]

A "friend" (who is eccentric) once gave me a huge earring as a gift. I assumed it was CZ because the stone was just so big. Years later a jeweler complimented me on the earing, and I laughed because I thought he was making fun of me. He told me it looked real to him. I took it off and he examined it under magnification. Not only was it real, but also the quality of the stone and setting were remarkable.

A week after finding out it was real I lost it.

[Myron Van Horowitzski]

Originally Posted by Sattua

I am trying to establish if they could have been fakes, by asking if such good fakes exist and are readily available.

Sure there are.

Although these are loose and you'd have to have somebody knot 'em.

[Sattua]

I spent several hours at Panera today (but that's a story about the auto mechanic... ) and observed the following:

• Lots of old Chinese women, not wearing any pearls at all
• Lots of women in business suits, not wearing any pearls at all
• A few bored-looking rich women in silk suits, not wearing any pearls at all
• One middle-aged woman wearing a short strand of smallish pearls--lustrous--but without knots in between each pearl, which suggests to me they were fake.

My response to Samclem's last post in this thread was the easy response (obviously? obviously) but he is of course right that an awful lot of people in the world can buy pearls. What I'm talking about is not a matter of can, but do.

Anyway. It's an unanswerable question. Other interesting people at Panera today: a group of firemen who stood head and shoulders taller than everyone else in line; a real-life Forrest Gump filling out an application. The haircut and the suit and everything--but a sweeter face. If Elijah Wood had been cast as Forrest Gump, that would have been him.