Bullseye 2620
Member
There is apparently a lack of practical knowledge about what genuine mother of pearl (MOP) looks like, and how to differentiate it from the fake plastic stuff that seems to proliferate like mushrooms in a cow pasture.
In an effort to educate and protect buyers from dishonest and/or ignorant, lazy sellers, I want to offer the following:
The grips in the top photo are genuine mother of pearl. The single panel in the bottom photo is plastic (or polymer, or pearlite, or whatever other weasel-word they prefer to use to distract people from the fact that what they're selling isn't mother of pearl).
To me, the difference is apparent. The fakes are dull. The genuine article has a natural iridescence that changes and reflects the light differently as you look at it from different angles. The fakes don't do that do much, but they do typically have swirls, lots of swirls, as shown in this example.
If you'll look at the panel on the left side of the top photo, you'll see an area of iridescence that seems to be breaking through a cloudy, milky layer over it. It is almost as if there is a window in the milky layer through which one can see the underlying iridescence. This feature is very typical of natural mother of pearl; I have never seen anything like this effect on grips made out of plastic. Lower grade MOP will have more of this milky material, but even the highest grade -- in pieces large enough to permit the manufacture of revolver grips -- will and should have some areas of milkiness.
The other certain indicator of genuine MOP is your teeth. That's right, your teeth. If you drag the edges of your front teeth across a grip panel, and it feels smooth, it's plastic. But, if you feel a little grittiness when you do that -- not sandpaper coarse, but a little gritty -- then the material is genuine MOP.
All real pearl, including MOP and pearls fashioned into jewelry, has this property. You can try it on that strand of pearls you bought for your wife. The grittiness you experience in that test will come awfully darn close to, if not be an exact duplicate of, what you'll experience when you test a set of genuine MOP grips in the wild.
Hope this helps.
^^^^^Real, or fake? What say you?^^^^^
In an effort to educate and protect buyers from dishonest and/or ignorant, lazy sellers, I want to offer the following:
The grips in the top photo are genuine mother of pearl. The single panel in the bottom photo is plastic (or polymer, or pearlite, or whatever other weasel-word they prefer to use to distract people from the fact that what they're selling isn't mother of pearl).
To me, the difference is apparent. The fakes are dull. The genuine article has a natural iridescence that changes and reflects the light differently as you look at it from different angles. The fakes don't do that do much, but they do typically have swirls, lots of swirls, as shown in this example.
If you'll look at the panel on the left side of the top photo, you'll see an area of iridescence that seems to be breaking through a cloudy, milky layer over it. It is almost as if there is a window in the milky layer through which one can see the underlying iridescence. This feature is very typical of natural mother of pearl; I have never seen anything like this effect on grips made out of plastic. Lower grade MOP will have more of this milky material, but even the highest grade -- in pieces large enough to permit the manufacture of revolver grips -- will and should have some areas of milkiness.
The other certain indicator of genuine MOP is your teeth. That's right, your teeth. If you drag the edges of your front teeth across a grip panel, and it feels smooth, it's plastic. But, if you feel a little grittiness when you do that -- not sandpaper coarse, but a little gritty -- then the material is genuine MOP.
All real pearl, including MOP and pearls fashioned into jewelry, has this property. You can try it on that strand of pearls you bought for your wife. The grittiness you experience in that test will come awfully darn close to, if not be an exact duplicate of, what you'll experience when you test a set of genuine MOP grips in the wild.
Hope this helps.
^^^^^Real, or fake? What say you?^^^^^
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