My daughter-in-law, Missy, just asked me to make two necklaces to match the Murano glass earrings she recently found in her Air Force Base Exchange in Germany. Missy has lived in Italy several times, so she recognized that the earrings probably weren't real authentic Murano glass, but she liked them enough to buy them anyway.
Since I won't knowingly deal in counterfeit, I went online to my Murano glass supplier to find some glass beads to match her earrings.
The difference in color and craftsmanship is amazing. Genuine Murano glass is slightly heavy, because in almost every style of glass, there's a base against which the other colored glass is laid, and then a clear glass overlay to protect the gold or silver leaf which has been applied.
Missy's earrings were so lightweight, they felt like plastic.
These genuine beads I found (right) were vivid, concentrated colors applied over Silver or 14KT Gold leaf. I'll wire them together and put them onto a front-opening chain so they'll be easy to get on and off and lightweight to wear.
If you don't care what you are buying, then perhaps counterfeit beads or stones really don't matter. The jewelry is pretty enough to wear, after all.
But to Jewelry Designers, counterfeit screams "wrong." It's a lie. Jewelry Design is Art, and Art does not lie.
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