Search on eBay for "South Sea Pearls" and you'll likely come up with thousands of listings...

But only one in 100 is genuinely offering any sort of "South Sea Pearl".

First, let's review:  Exactly What IS A "South Sea Pearl"?

Well, South Sea Pearls come from HUGE oysters that only live in the South Seas (the area of the ocean between the north edge of Australia and the southern edge of China that has warm, nutrient-rich water).   These waters are the native habitat of the large oyster, the Pinctada maxima. This oyster grows up to 12 inches in diameter, and can be nucleated with a much larger bead than other saltwater oysters such as the Akoya.

There are two varieties of Pinctada maxima: the silver-lipped and the gold-lipped. The two are distinguished by the coloration of the outer edge of the interior.  Because of the glorious color of the mother of pearl nacre in these oysters, you get some gorgeous pearls!

South Sea Pearls are the largest cultured pearls available on the market today.  The average size of a South Sea pearl is 13mm, with most harvests producing a range of sizes from 9mm up to 20mm.

These are photos of REAL South Seas Pearls:

Now, you must realize that REAL South Seas Pearls are not cheap.  They do not sell for $.99 a strand, even on eBay.  The pearls above are selling for the low, low price of between $7,900 and $15,000.  These are GEM-QUALITY South Seas Pearls.

I see real South Sea Pearls on eBay at between $50 and $500 a strand, but the pearls are not gem-quality.  Most are off-round, with surface blemishes that wouldn't make the sales floor of your normal mall jewelry store.  Many sellers pick these up wholesale and make necklaces of them.  They are still fairly expensive, but you are not getting top grade AAA pearls like the item descriptions tell you.

The pearls below are real Tahitian South Sea Pearls.  The luster is beautiful, but the surface blemishes and the shape have just dropped the price from thousands to hundreds.  Non-gem-quality pearls can make beautiful necklaces and bracelets, at a far more reasonable price.

Now...when you see a listing for pearls with brilliant luster, and perfectly round shape that are large sized, carefully look for the words "Sea Shell Pearls" anywhere in the description.

Many eBay sellers offer a lab-created pearl that is beautifully near to the size, shape and luster of a real South Sea Pearl.  These lab-created pearls are gorgeous, and they are not always cheap, but they are
not REAL pearls. 

They are created by coating a glass or shell matrix bead with a nacreous solution made by pulverizing real mother-of-pearl with a strong clear binding agent and then polishing, re-coating, polishing, etc.  These stunningly beautiful pearls are usually more perfect than real pearls, and make gorgeous costume jewelry...and often sellers attempt to pass them off as real South Sea Pearls because buyers don't know the difference.

Also, you will note some items up for sale on eBay openly state "Genuine FRESHWATER South Sea Pearls".  Some sellers can't seem to figure out exactly what their Pearls are.  For sellers who tout their items as "Freshwater" South Sea Pearls, the response is...Nope.  South Sea Pearls are saltwater pearls.  :)

What's the difference between real and man-made, you ask?

Without your handy-dandy home pearl x-ray machine, you have to have a fair understanding of what a pearl looks like, feels like, and how they are made.  Real pearls today are mostly cultured.  Natural, non-cultured pearls are terribly expensive, because they are terribly rare!  Pearls are cultured inside the mantel flesh of oysters or other mollusks, and they are a natural, perishable gem.  To induce an oyster or freshwater mussel to create a pearl, people insert a bit of matrix and a bead made of mother of pearl or clamshell or a tiny square of shell into the mantel of the mollusk, and let it work its magic for a year or more.   If the bead is round, the pearl has a better chance of ending up round, or near-round.  When the oyster/mussel finishes its work, the pearls are harvested.   Then the pearls are sorted by size, shape, color and quality, and go to the pearl markets.

Pearl sorters at work.

Pearls that come from oysters or mussels get their color from the nacre in the oyster or mussel.  Real pearls can be bleached to improve their white color, or dyed to brilliant, exotic colors, of course, but most gem quality South Sea or Tahitian pearls are not tampered with.   Their value is too high.

If you will take a good look at some of the "South Sea Pearls" on this page beside this guide, you will note that they may be olive green, brilliant yellow, or vivid pink.  Some Tahitian Pearls are various shades of green,  but not usually vivid or apple green.  Natural pearls seldom come in those colors, but Sea Shell Pearls can be beautifully colored in any shade you want.  South Seas Pearls are usually shades of pale silver or gold, golden-pink,  silver white, and sometimes can achieve a brilliant deep gold or silver cast.  Tahitian Pearls are darker...silver, grey, peacock, platinum, copper, sometimes teal green or iridescent blue over silver.

This necklace combines real cultured South Sea Pearls from the gold and silver lipped oysters, with some beautiful Tahitian Pearls.  The pinks are a natural color, but note that the pink is subtle and lovely.  The designer used a combination of big Akoyas in the pinks and the South Sea Pearls in the gold and silver, along with Tahitian.  This necklace carried a price tag of over $3,900.

Mainly, the price is how you can tell real South Sea Pearls from sea shell pearls.  When a seller is offering real, gem-quality South Sea Pearls, you won't normally get them for under a four-figure price tag.   Sea Shell Pearls are running between $20-170 a necklace with silver or 14k clasps.  They are strung exactly the same as natural pearls, knotted between the beads.

So if a seller shows you perfect, brilliantly lustrous pearls like the vividly colored strands shown in picture number three above and calls them South Sea Pearls, for a $9.99 starting bid, remember that the pearls involved are most likely NOT real South Sea Pearls.  

Please note:  I have begun to see a large number of sellers scamming folks into thinking they are getting Akoya pearls this same way.  One seller marks his auctions "10mm Akoya White Sea Shell Pearls" hoping that buyers will think that "Akoya White" is what they will be getting.  But the COLOR is nebulously referred to as "Akoya White".  And the pearl is a manufactured sea shell pearl.   If you can manage to read the 10,000 word description, you will find that out. 

REMEMBER:  ALWAYS READ THE DESCRIPTION!

Check out my other pearl guides for more photos, and good luck!