Featured Mother Of Pearls?

Are those beads MOP?

 

Looks like dyed onyx to my eye. Other opinions may differ.

Debora

 

Nice Old clasp, from what I can tell

 

They look like they could be dyed mother of pearl to me.

 

Second dyed mother of pearl
Color faded because of age, I love that

 

Third.

 

Oh, yes, looks like a hidden clasp or whatever the correct name is. Nice.

 

Why "dyed mother of pearl"??? Pearls have a concentric layers not horizontal ones like shown in the photos.

Dyed onyx +1

 

The clasp is screw on. Made of plastic or so with matching color.

 

By they way, these are cold to touch and feel kind of glassy so maybe not MOP?

 

If warm, I'd have said moonglow. But I'm in the dyed onyx camp.

 

But then some have pinholes and the undyed areas do look like pearl.

 

What can we tell from the last photo?

 

Nothing it's too out of focus,put a drop of vinegar on it and see what happens.

 

Looks like shell damage to me. Add another vote for dyed MOP. This undyed strand belongs to me:

 

Feel them by slightly rubbing against the edge of your front tooth, they will feel gritty!

I'm 100% sure it is mother of pearl, cut from a thick large shell.
Onyx has NO pearlescence

 

Agree with kyratango. I also believe it is a dyed MOP or similar for the same reason.

 

These are not pearls. They are spherical beads cut out of the nacreous wall of a thick shell, where the mollusk laid the nacre down layer by layer. Pearls have concentric layers only because the nacre layers were laid down around all sides of a nucleus that was not attached to the shell wall.

Think your clasp was originally like mine & then dyed along with the beads. I should add that mine are knotted because I restrung them; probably were not when I got them. You can see attaching the second part of the clasp was a challenge I did not meet very well.