The Pandora Jewellery Blog

3 ways to Know if Your Pandora Beads are Genuine

Pandora jewellery is a hugely popular designer jewellery brand, and a trend that looks set to last.  However as with all popular brands there are a lot of imitation brands around which try and convince customers that they are the genuine Pandora article.

There are three main tips for you to check to ensure that your Pandora jewellery and any Pandora jewellery you are considering purchasing is a genuine Pandora piece.

1. The Pandora Hallmark

This is the best indicate as to whether an item is an authentic Pandora piece as all Pandora items bare the Pandora company hallmark on the bead or bracelet.

As well as the Pandora hallmark, the majority of Pandora pieces now carry the letters “ALE” followed by either 925ss on silver items or 585 on gold items.  On Pandora bracelets you can find the markings ALE on the inside of the Pandora clasp.

Per Enevoldsen was the founder of Pandora jewellery, and “ALE” are the initials of his grandfather, Algot Enevoldsen, so this ALE is the original jeweller’s hallmark.

If your Pandora jewellery bares this hallmark you can rest assured that is an authentic Pandora jewellery piece.

2. Is the Seller an Authorised Pandora Retailer?

Another key method of ensuring you are purchasing genuine Pandora items is to only purchase from an authentic, registered Pandora Jewellery retailer

Only certain retailers are licensed to sell genuine Pandora jewellery.

To find out whether the retailer you are purchasing from is a licensed Pandora jewellery retailer, you can have a look at the authorised list of dealers on the Pandora website.  This is broken down by region and shows which dealers are authorised in your area.

This list does only display retailers with an offline shop, so if you are purchasing from an internet only retailer they may not be listed here.  I would not suggest that you solely purchase your items from your local retailer, as this may not always be possible, but when purchasing from an online retailer, I would advise using one that has an offline store also.

You can purchase Pandora jewellery through eBay; however you should be careful, eBay sellers are never authorised Pandora sellers.  If you do purchase through eBay there is no guarantee that the items you receive will be genuine Pandora items.  I am not suggesting ruling out eBay completely for Pandora jewellery, however I would air on the side of caution with these purchases.

3. Match the Product to the Pandora website

The final way to check is to match your product with one shown on the official Pandora website, or an authorised dealer website.

If you do decide to use the official Pandora website to check against your items, please note that this only shows items which are currently in production.  So if your bead is not listed on the Pandora site does not mean that is a replica, it may be a discontinued or retired Pandora bead.

When matching your Pandora item with the one on the website there are a few things to look out for, as while there are quite a few imitations around, they are not to the same high quality as authentic Pandora jewellery.

Many imitation glass beads offer hand painted designs, or patterns slightly raised, or the design painted on the outside of the glass.  Pandora murano glass beads are all created within the glass, which means that the design runs right through the bead.  If the bead you are looking at has painted glass you will know it is an imitation.

Hopefully you will find these tips useful when purchasing your Pandora jewellery pieces to ensure that you only get authentic Pandora pieces.