Age Dating
In 2017, SSEF became the first gem laboratory worldwide to introduce, as an additional service to clients, age dating of pearls using carbon-14 (14C). This scientific method can provide the pearl industry with new valuable information about the age of loose pearls and pearls in jewellery.
Contact us for more information on this service.
Age determination can support evidence of historic provenance in the case of antique jewellery and iconic natural pearls. It can also be used to identify fraud in cases where, for example, younger pearls are mounted in historical jewellery items, or have been treated so that they appear older than having been farmed during the 20th century. 14C age dating can be used to obtain evidence to support a decision whether a pearl is of natural or cultured formation. This is because methods to commercially cultivate pearls from certain mollusc species began only during the 20th century. The oldest natural pearls examined using this method by SSEF were recovered in the famous Cirebon shipwreck off Java in Indonesia and were dated back to the turn of the first millennium (11th century).
For more information about this method also see our presentation :
Radiocarbon 14C dating of pearls
“From the Study of cultural heritage to cultured pearl identification”
DNA fingerprinting and age dating of pearls and corals at SSEF
Pearl testing was long limited to determining whether a pearl is natural or cultured, and whether a pearl has been treated or not. As we have considerably invested in pearl research in recent years, we have achieved significant breakthroughs, namely DNA fingerprinting for species identification and
Age dating of cobalt spinel
Radiometric U-Pb dating is a promising tool in gemstone testing and is used at SSEF as an advanced analytical procedure since several years. However, this method is usually only applicable when the gemstone presents sufficient traces of radiogenic elements either in its crystal structure or within a
Age dating of coral
by Dr. M.S. Krzemnicki, first published in Facette 26 (May 2020) Since 2017, the Swiss Gemmological Institute SSEF offers radiocarbon dating of pearls as a service. To further expand our knowledge about this method and its applicability to other biogenic gem materials, we were happy to receive a nu