I find some really interesting articles in my monthly jewellers trade magazine and sometimes like share to articles here with you on my pearl jewellery blog. DNA fingerprinting and age dating of pearls is something very new and is now being used by Swiss researchers at SEEFand ETHZ in Zurich, who…(can you believe it!)….were able to recover minute amounts of DNA from a wide range of pearls.
Sampled pearls were from Australia the Persian Gulf and Indonesia and from French Polynesia. It’s a practically non destructive technique to extract DNA so as to preserve the commercial value of tested historic and modern pearls. I believe something like this will positively benefit any pearl business owner or wearer as it will help identify and authenticate pearls, once and for all. This will certainly reduce the likelihood of unscrupulous merchants who say their pearls are real when in fact for example they are just shell imitations. Finally they can pin point from where the pearls you are about to purchase were first harvested. I am all for this transparency as it will surely help the industry in a very positive way. If you’d like to see some real pearls we make here at Julleen – see these Necklace – Mainly Pearls. http://www.julleen.com/store/necklaces/mainly-pearls/
