K

Kasumi

These are a sub-species of freshwater pearls grown only in Lake Kasumi-ga-Ura, some 40 miles northeast of Tokyo, Japan. They have a distinctive surface, like wrinkled satin. Kasumi like pearls are now being produced in China


Chinese Kasumi look remarkably like the distinctive pearls

from lake Kasumi but cost a fraction of the price

Keishi or Keshi

Japanese word meaning “something as tiny as you can imagine”, such as a grain of sand; used originally for very tiny gems that resulted by accident as part of the culturing process; now used to refer to all-nacre baroque pearls produced when something goes wrong in the process of culturing so that the seeding nucleus is ejected from the half formed pearl. South Sea kesihi pearls can be very large; Japanese keishi pearls can be minuscule. The shape ranges from resembling a cornflake (so they are also called cornflake pearls) to something more like a slightly deflated balloon. They tend to have fabulous lustre


White keishi pearls

Knots

Knots in the silk between pearls is a sign of quality in pearls. If there are no knots or the pearls are on beading wire and look stiff and without movement then they are not being assembled to show their best. The knots serve two purposes. Firstly the chances of losing all the pearls is minimised, only one or two maximum can be lost (Pearlescence always gets really annoyed at the scene in ‘Murder is Announced’ where the pearl necklace breaks and all the pearls shower onto the floor. Good for Miss Marple but very bad for pearls). Secondly each knot acts as a hinge allowing the necklace or bracelet to flex. They stop the individual pearls packing closely. Never get pearls strung onto real silk wet – this is not because the pearls will be harmed, it is very unlikely that just getting wet with water (either salt, fresh or swimming pool) will damage pearls after all, but the silk on which they are strung will rot in time especially the silk inside each pearl which is trapped and therefore takes much longer to dry. Please do wear your pearls all the time. Pearls need light oils to look their best and the oil in human skin is perfect. If you absolutely must wear your pearls in water then please let us know and we can re-string them on a very strong and water resistant synthetic silk substitute.

Play between the pearl and the knots. This is a sign that the silk may be stretching and it might be time to start thinking about getting them re-strung. We are happy to re-string pearls and will restring our own pearls at a reduced rate.


The picture shows a two strand necklace where the upper strand has been

strung unknotted onto silk and the lower has been knotted.

M

Mabe

A blister pearl which has been hollowed out and filled with a substance and backing. Mabe pearls are often made into earrings A mabe is a hemispherically shaped pearl which is grown against the inside of the oyster’s shell, rather than within its tissue Blister pearls are worked by cutting the pearl out of the shell with a circle-bit drill. The nucleus is then removed and replaced with a resin. The back of the pearl is capped with a piece of mother-of-pearl to complete the mabe pearl.

Maeshori

This is a Japanese term which means before (mae) treatment (shori). It encompasses treatments used on all akoya, freshwater and some South Sea pearls. Maeshori treatments vary from factory to factory. The processes tighten the nacre and pull moisture out to enhance the lustre. This has a side effect of tending to make the nacre more brittle, so that freshwater, pearls that have been overtreated will turn chalky very quickly. Maeshori processing on South Sea pearls is very common in Japan. It makes the pearls whiter, brighter, and more saleable. One basic maeshori process is tumbling in chips of walnut shell which cleans and burnishes. This is considered so standard that it is not normally a declared treatment

.

Majorica or Majorcan pearl

A high-quality fake pearl manufactured in Spain by Majorica, S.A. These nuclei are dipped in high quality essence d’orient ( varnish made up of the scales from bleak, shad, herring and salmon. 2,000 fish make one litre of essence, which is an organic substance similar to uric acid.)

Mantle tissue

The special tissue inside certain molluscs which secretes nacre Metallic Lustre A pearl has a metallic lustre when the lustre is so shiny that it resembles polished metal. Metallic lustre is not a criterion in the usual grading system

Ming

What are Ming pearls? They are usually the better quality generic bead nucleated freshwater pearls, but some people throw that description at any quality of such pearls. As a quality description it is really pretty meaningless. Calling a pearl a Ming pearl does not of itself guarantee any sort of quality.(see bead nucleation and Edison for further info)


A Ming pearl necklace

Momme

A momme is unit of weight, used for silk or pearls, and you will still sometimes see pearl prices quoted as per momme – with the price given against quality. One momme is 3.75 grams and one Kan is 1000 momme

N

Nacre

is composed of hexagonal platelets of aragonite ( a type of calcium carbonate) (in a crystalline form) and conchiolin (an organic protein substance which provides bonding). The specific lustre, iridescence, and colouring of nacre — and, therefore, of any pearl which it forms — depends on the number and thickness of the various layers, as well as on whether or not the layers overlap one another. A freshwater pearl is made up of many layers of nacre and no bead.


The layers of nacre can be clearly seen in this freshwater

solid nacre pearl which has split open

Natural

A pearl which is ‘wild’ ie one which has grown without any human activity or intervention is called a natural pearl. Natural pearls are very rare these days and so command high prices. There are still several wild colonies of freshwater mussels Margaritifera margaritifera in the UK and they are protected by law under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Selling a UK natural pearl needs a licence. These molluscs can live for over 100 years. The earliest reference in Britain to freshwater mussels is by Julius Caesar’s biographer, Suetonius, who stated that Caesar’s admiration of pearls was a reason for the first Roman invasion in 55BC.

P

Parure

A matched set of jewellery, which might include earrings, a necklace, brooches, rings, and other pieces.

Peanut

A peanut pearl is formed when two nuclei in a seeded pearl stick and then grow together to make something which resembles the shell of a peanut.

Pearlescence

Resembling pearl or mother-of-pearl in iridescence and lustre (or, of course, an excellent source of all things pearl)

Pick a Pearl

A marketing ploy used in some tourist shops whereby the customer selects a shell which has been pre-seeded with a pearl of some sort, and lo – there is their pearl. Look closely and the mollusc is preserved in chemicals and long dead and the pearls usually freshwater. Pearlescence heard of one operation in the UK where someone got a dyed green potato pearl and was told it was green because the oyster was sick. Pearlescence knows where to buy these seeded molluscs for under $1 a time in China. But wouldn’t.


Tinned pickled pearls………….


Nicknamed Pipi pearls. The smallest of the oceanic pearl producing oysters and possibly the direct ancestor of all of them. It produces bright, lustrous deep golden pearls but is too small to be farmed on a realistic commercial basis. The shells are only about 20mm and pearls range from 2mm to 5mm.

Pinctada margaritifera

This mollusc produces the black Tahitian pearl in French Polynesia, the Cook Islands and Australia

Pinking

A very common to routine treatment especially for akoya pearls whereby the pearl, after bleaching, is dyed so that it shows a tinge of pink.

Pondslime

Pondslime is the name given to pearls which show an unusual golden to brown coating to their natural colour nacre. These pearls used to be either discarded as junk or dyed dark colours to disguise what was seen as a failure in cultivation but now such natural effects are valued and desirable. The effect ranges from a dull nicotine brown to dazzling gold as if the pearl has a layer of gold leaf

Popcorn Pearls

Pearls of any shape on which the surface nacre has a granulated appearance so that they look like fresh popcorn. We call them granulated pearls. Also called rosebud or strawberry pearls and in China, mao-jyue or hairy pearls.


Popcorn pearls

Potato

Any mis-shapen pearl is a potato pearl because it resembles a potato. Also called irregular pearls or nugget pearls. Cheaper potato pearls will have one flat surface but the better ones are rounded all around


Better quality potato pearls have smooth rounded surfaces and great lustre

Pteria sterna The rainbow lipped oyster which produces the pearls of the Sea of Cortez, Mexico These pearls fluoresce red under ultra-violet light.

R

Rice

Oval/elliptical shaped pearls. Considerably cheaper than round pearls.


Rice or elliptical pearls. Can also be drop/drip shape

Rice Crispie pearls

Chinese freshwater pearls were originally grown in the Cristaria plicata (cockscomb pearl mussel) and resembled rice crispies.


Typical rice crispie pearls

Romans

Ancient romans loved their pearls and pearl jewellery has been found in excavations. A pearl dealer was called a margaritarius

The marker for one pearl dealer, Gaius Ateilius Euhodus, is still standing just outside Rome.


Tombstone marker for Gaius Ateilius, margaritarius

Rosebud see popcorn

Round

The more perfectly round a pearl is, the more valuable. A good quick way to assess roundness is to gently roll a strand of pearls. Irregularities will show easily to the eye


Loose undrilled white round freshwater tissue nucleated all nacre pearls

S

Scams

Fakes can sometimes be real pearls which have been processed to look like more valuable pearls. Popular on auction websites where people sadly buy Tahitian pearls for £5.

Two examples. The left hand pearls were described as baroque south sea pearls and the ones on the right as Tahitian blacks (this gets around the restrictions as they are describing the dye colour, not the pearl provenance) The Tahitian black pearls have some wear as they may look acceptable but the poor dyed fireballs pretending to be south sea pearls ended their days in the bin



These unhappy pearls were sold as baroque south Tahitian black – the label describes the dye

sea not the place of origin. The same stock photo

appeared at £6.70..or £7.10 from another

seller or 0.01p in an auction from a third

Note that some freshwater suppliers are working to dye big round bead nucleated pearls to resemble the finest gold south sea pearls. Individually strands look impressively close, but in a hank they look slightly ‘ear-wax’ yellow.


This photo shows loose genuine south sea pearls. Some are untreated

while others have been dyed to ‘enhance’ the colour.

Scottish River Pearls

Highly prized and very rare wild natural pearls. So protected by law that a licence is needed to sell them. The species is Margaritifera margaritifera . They are believed to live for 250 years! It is said that one reason for the Roman invasion of Britain was to gain access to the pearls.



Wild Margarififera Margaritifera pearls

Wild pearls live in several locations around the UK. All very secret

Sea of Cortez

One farm is producing mostly greys and blue shades in Mexico, re-starting a pearl history which was thriving when the Spanish invaded (see Cortez for more information)

Second Graft

What it says – a second graft happens when a mollusc is returned to the water after harvest. Its pearl sac is either re-filled, with a bead equal to the size of the pearl removed (so that the second pearl grown will be larger when that is harvested) or a keishi pearl will grow.

Seed pearls

Tiny pearls weighing under 1/4 grain, usually 3mm or less.

Shape

Generally the rounder the pearl the more valuable the pearl is.

Silver nitrate

This chemical, the same as used in photography, darkens the appearance of pearls. The chemical penetrates the layers of nacre and has a chemical reaction with light and hydrogen sulphide gas to create a rich black colour.

Size

Generally, the bigger the pearl the more valuable, however a smaller more perfectly formed round pearl will be more valuable than a big baroque one. Pearls under 3mm in size are increasing in price as their production is falling. Pearls are measured at 90deg to the drill hole (or where the drill hole would be if undrilled)

Souffle Pearls

Very large freshwater pearls are being produced with pearls nucleated with a lump of expansive compound These pearls, third graft, can have stunning lustre and a rather keishi appearance so far. When drilled the compound and water is drained away so that the pearl is hollow and light in weight. However most freshwater cultured pearls are still solid pearl nacre, even pearls up to 15mm. This means that they are arguably more durable but the chances of non-perfect round shapes are higher.

South Sea pearls

Large South Sea cultured pearls (up to 16 mm), farmed in Australia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, range in colour from white to gold and to black. They can have a perfectly round to slightly asymmetrical shape and medium to high lustre Price varies depending on lustre. South Sea pearls are harvested after at least two years. They have a unique, satiny lustre that comes from the rapidly deposited nacre and warm waters of the South Seas. South Sea pearls also have a subtle array of colours, typically white, silver, and golden, Gold south sea pearls come mainly from Thailand and white south sea pearls mainly from Australia.




White round south sea pearl very baroque very blue south sea gold drop south sea pair

pearl

Spat

Baby oysters which are either artificially bred in a hatchery or spawn naturally and are attracted to collection points are called spat. They will be grown on until big enough to be implanted


Spat – size of a thumbnail

Sterling Silver

Sterling silver is a mix of 92.5% by mass of silver and 7.5% by mass of other metals, usually copper. The copper is added to make the metal harder. All Pearlescence Sterling silver over the required minimum weight carries the London Assay office hallmark of owner Wendy Graham (Initials wmg in an oval cartouche). All silver from Pearlescence is nickel-free.

Stick

Any long thin and stick or twig like pearl, They can be drilled at the top or middle and through the wider or narrower faces to produce different looks.


Matched large thin sticks made into earrings

Surface.

The smoother and more perfect the surface of a pearl, the higher the value

Tahitian Pearls

T

Tahitian Pearls

are produced by the black-lipped oyster (Pinctada margaritifera). They have been produced for almost exactly 50 years now in French Polynesia, in the lagoons of remote coral atolls and islands – everywhere except on Tahiti Itself!


Kamoka pearl farm,. Ahe atoll, French Polynesia

Black Lip Oysters are now also being farmed in a small way in Australia. The oyster itself is quite large — sometimes up to 12 inches across and weighing as much as 10 pounds — which often results in much larger-than-average pearls. The pearls are unique because of their natural dark colours. Most “black” Tahitian pearls are not actually black, but are instead grey, silver, charcoal,chocolate brown, blue, purple, aubergine, pink, beige or even off-white Truly black pearls are extremely rare.


Black pearls….

Tahitian pearls are grown around a bead so are often round but can be semi round to drops as well. Circles are common, and some prefer circle pearls because they are clearly real and not imitation. Tahitian pearls go through x-ray inspection before legal export (ask to see their export certificate and confuse most jewellers!) and have a different grading system A-D where A grade are the best pearls

Third graft

Sometimes molluscs yield pearls of such quality that farmers put them back in the water for a third time. Third graft pearls will be very large indeed, and the mollusc could be ten years old.

Top drilled

Asymmetrically drilled pearls, often oval. If strung un-knotted they tend to move around against each other on the silk and then are called dancing pearls

W

Wearing pearls

Please do not put any hairspray, make-up, perfume or any other such substances where they could contact and be absorbed by the pearls. Pearls are a natural biological substance and are porous, so avoid anything which could be absorbed by them. We have reeled back in horror when opening envelopes for some pearls returned for re-stringing where they seem soaked in perfume.

Wish Pearls

See pick a pearl.

If you love keishi pearls – this SS oyster is your hero of the day

Thanks to the amazing pearl farmers at the Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm in Australia we heard about a single SS oyster which produced 10 keishi. Single round pearl neatly in pearl sac ..ptoouie, not having any of that. Spat out the implanted nucleus, tucking it against its shell to make a blister pearl, then proceeded to make a seedless pearl in the pearl sac, and 10 pearls were growing in the mantle tissue as a natural pearl would. Being pearl farmers, it is hard to certify a natural pearl so they will all be valued and sold as Keshi pearls.

all the pearls on the half shell which is clearly all white

Now CIBJO won’t allow these ten beauties to be classed as natural pearls but, to all intents they are naturals which happened to have happened in a farmed shell..it’s the certainty which is lacking

(Ten keishi is remarkable. I remember the excitement in finding just one bonus keishi hidden in the mantle tissue when I was working at the pearl farm in Indonesia. You find with your fingers and not your eyes, by the way)

Thanks to http://www.cygnetbaypearlfarm.com.au for permission for the photos and the story

Harvesting South Sea Pearls: Working on a pearl farm in Indonesia

What do you say when a pearl company asks if you want to help with harvesting south sea pearls on their farm in Indonesia? You say ‘yes please’ and ‘when?’ and immediately buy plane tickets. Well, Betty Sue King and I did, anyway. Let me take you with us on an amazing adventure where we worked hard and learned so much (…and were wet a lot of the time).

taxi to airport

The adventure starts

Our adventure started very early in the morning with a taxi ride to Hong Kong airport to fly to Jakarta and then Manado airports in Indonesia. The next day we set off to the farm itself, on an island to the north of Sulawesi. A car ride through twisty country roads where, if a dog, piglet or human felt like walking in the middle of the road or have a bit of a sleep in the sun, well, the car went round them. As a UK driver I was …. arghhhhh…but it all seemed to work out somehow. Then, after a short wait, a tiny wooden boat appeared which was to be our ride to the farm. Again, thoughts of health and safety were quickly squashed. Everyone local seemed perfectly happy with the boat so..

Happily the sea was smooth and the trip uneventful, as Betty Sue and I pinched ourselves. We’d been excited about this trip for months and now, here we were. Our eyes strained for our first glimpse of the farm as we skirted numerous small islands, all covered in dense green lush trees and with the occasional village on the shore. Finally we were there.

pearl farm

Our first glimpse of the farm

(How to scramble off the boat with some semblance of dignity and along the dock – slippery and wet, without falling back into the sea?) (especially the short section which was just three planks)

three planks of doom

Three planks of slippery doom. By the end of our stay I had enough confidence to gulp quietly to myself then stride confidently along them

Our host, Dev, shows us round, from one end of the farm to the other – there’s a hatchery, the harvest has started, there are baskets, floats,nets piled everywhere, men being purposeful at their tasks, and finally we are shown the first pearls harvested, that very day.

harvest south sea pearls

The first day’s pearl harvest. Note the tags in each basket which show who nucleated the oysters and other details of their history. Note also me remembering my reporter roots and writing it all down!

The farm has four technicians who split grafting duties – two from Japan, who are the farm manager Hiroshi and his deputy Kudo and two local girls still being trained (who will have a worldwide transferable skill)

The main problem with training, indeed with any innovation or change in technique, in grafting with south sea pearls is that the time between carrying out the operation and the harvest, when you find out if the idea is good or the technique is sound is 18 month. Every technician takes copious notes of what they have done all the time, but it is a long time to wait..

This farm is doing a lot right though, because the survival rate from graft to harvest is 80%. Grafting is done when the oysters are around 7-8cm in size and around 10 months old.

First thing on our first full day on the farm we visited the hatchery. The farm raises its own baby oysters from eggs and sperm.  They’re cared for and cosseted in a controlled environment with great food and no predators. Even at microscopic size they are recognisable as oysters – you can’t see anything when they are few days old except with a microscope.

baby oysters

Here’s the little baby oysters, just a few days old, only visible under magnification

 

oyster hatchery

The hatchery tanks. farm manager Hiroshi to the right

oyster hatchery

The water looks quite clear but there are many thousands of tiny little baby oysters happily swimming around

baby oyster food

breakfast and dinner for hungry growing baby oysters

Baby oysters start their life in the ocean attached to these plaited ropes, tucked safely in rectangular cages like squared off lobster pots.

spat

The plaited ropes for the little spats.

 

After visiting the hatchery we were put right to work. Out over the sea is a rectangular room where the harvest is done. The skiffs bring the baskets with the oysters right to the door, the oysters are removed from the baskets and the oysters opened. Then the flesh is scraped off into a bowl (yes, harvesting is brutal, there is no way around this) and when the bowl is full..that is where Betty Sue and I came in. Twice a day the whole room is washed down and cleaned.

We were placed at a small table with three bowls. One full of oyster bodies, one for pearls and one for the harvested bodies.

pearl harvest

Getting started with learning how to harvest the pearls.

A brief lesson in where and how to look and feel for the pearls and we were away.

pearl inside oyster

With this oyster not only is the pearl within easy to feel but it is visible.

At first we were, of course, hopelessly slow. I was concerned that I would miss a precious pearl – some oysters manage to discard their nucleus even after they are x-rayed. But practice made much nearer to perfect, especially encouraged when I found a series of tiny keishi, some no bigger than 1mm. Most of the keishi are in or right by the pearl sac and simply pop out at the same time, but some are hidden in the body of the oyster or around its mantle. These are, to all intents wild or natural pearls, even though CIBJO says they are cultured. (mostly I suspect because it would be next to impossible to verify provenance successfully and credibly)

gold south sea

A beautiful gold drop

It’s not a bit glamorous. Your feet are wet the whole time as the floor is continuously washed down and the oyster goo gets everywhere (however we both noticed it had a wonderful effect on the skin on our hands – beautifully smoothed and not wrinkled) Some pearls are easy to find, while others hide away deep in the body.

Neither of us could resist studying each and every pearl as it appeared in our hand, and I noticed that even the fastest and most experienced harvesters also looked carefully at each pearl before dropping it into the bowl to be quickly washed and then whisked off to be cleaned and sorted. There were pearls of all shapes and sizes, rounds, near rounds and drops, circles, deep and pale golds, champagne pearls and whites, up to 12mm and down to 1mm. I would have been very happy to bring every single one home with me. Each one was beautiful.

south sea pearls

Random scoop from the harvest bowl. Every single one beautiful

Pile of opened shells, and a bowl of oysters about to be delivered to our table. It took quite a bit of strength and some incredibly fierce knives to open the shells.

I never got used to feeling one of these shrimps in the oyster bowl. The shrimps live in and around the oyster nets and every so often one would be in the bowl. I couldn’t help squealing like a baby when I felt it wriggle against my fingers, much to everyone’s amusement. I must have very sensitively tuned scaredy dangerous shrimp reflexes is all I can say

shrimp

Oyster with accompanying shrimp

The adductor muscle – the meat of the oyster – is collected at the end of the day from all the oysters and is sold on as meat. We had some several times at the farm – delicious and you couldn’t really get fresher!

meat

Last task of the day is collecting the delicious adductor muscle meat

Very little is wasted. The shells go for mother of pearl or are polished and sold.

shells six months

These little shells are about six months old

 

unpolished shell

Unpolished shell from the inside. This is a white shell

unpolished shell

Unpolished shell from the outside

gold polished

This shell has lots of gold. Polished

white

This shell is all white

Remember that the colour of the shell is no guide to the colour of the pearl though. The colour of the pearl is solely dependent on the colour genetically coded into the donor mantle tissue. To grow each pearl a nucleus is inserted into the gonad of the oyster when it has grown large enough. Between 18 and 20months at this farm.

nucleus beads

6mm nucleus beads ready for grafting

It is a delicate operation. The nucleus bead and tiny sliver of mantle tissue need to be placed just exactly so, so that they are not rejected and the graft tissue does not die (a few un-nacred nucleus came out where the tissue had died).  A couple of weeks later all the oysters will be x-rayed to check that the insert has been successful. Any where the oyster has managed to reject the nucleus (and who can blame them really?) will be rested and re-nucleated in due course). Pearls tend to grow larger in gold shells and smaller in white shells, although this is not a fixed and absolute rule.This farm uses a 6mm bead for nucleating. While the farm has tried second grafts they have found that they are not very effective against the extra time needed for harvesting so usually make only one harvest.

When they are little babies the oysters live on plaited ropes in protective baskets. Then they graduate to individual spaces on hanging flat pouch baskets – first eight then six to a basket.

you can see the two sizes of flat pouch baskets for the grafted oysters, six on the left and eight on the right.

The baskets are covered with nets to protect the oysters. The nets are changed every three months when all the encrustations are removed. Betty Sue and I went out in the skiff to help with this the day after the end of the harvest. We held the clean new bags open for the farm workers to slide the baskets in. Even though it was only 9am and I had applied factor 40 when the sun came out I could feel my skin starting to burn – factor 50 applied.  Kudo was so worried about my anglo-saxon winter white skin he came and got us after about an hour. I wanted to stay out but he was right.

oyster body

clear view of actual oyster body. The gonads, where the pearl is, is bottom right.

Both male and female oysters are grown.  Theoretically male oysters grow larger and better pearls because the female oysters have eggs in the gonad taking up space. At one time the eggs would be removed but that left a void and the nucleus often moved. We never noticed that gender made a big difference to the pearl. Certainly size of oyster was not related to size of pearl. sometimes the biggest oysters produced small pearls, and the smaller oysters produced big ones.

sex oysters

Female on the left, male to the right

At the farm the pearls are simply washed in rotating barrels to remove the oyster goo, then sorted and put into lots for auction. I have brought back a few pearls which I can guarantee have had no treatment whatsoever apart from this brief wash

barrel

These barrels fit onto a rotating spindle. As you can see..water and another barrel with a pinch of soap is all the treatment they get

I picked out these keishi for myself

south sea keishi

south sea keishi

and these few pearls will be available in due course. For those pearl lovers who want pearls with no treatments – I can guarantee that these have had nothing apart from a quick wash to remove oyster goo.

Gold south sea pearls guaranteed untreated

Gold south sea pearls. guaranteed untreated

During sorting careful note is made of who nucleated which batch and when in an attempt to work out successes and failures

nucleation

one lot of nucleation from one day. Plenty of rounds but a real mix of colours and sizes

One example of this careful tracking . Betty Sue and I were given the honour of harvesting a special lot of oysters which had been grafted with akoya pearls as an experiment. Sadly the pearls were largely unremarkable and mostly not as high quality as the regularly nucleated ones. There was some discussion about trying freshwater pearls.

The harvest lasted three days. We spent most of the time in the harvesting room, but were also allowed out on the boats to see the baskets hauled up for harvest and then to help put new nets on the baskets once the harvest was over. During the three days 15,636 pearls were harvested, with an average size of 11mm (excluding keishi from the calculation)

Huge and lifelong thanks to Devchand Chodhry, Hiroshi Imaizumi and Shigekazu Kudo and all the staff on the farm for their patience as I blundered around trying to join in everything and, I am sure, getting in the way of their skilled work.

 

Hong Kong, spring 2018

Prices for round Edison pearls have dropped massively – they are now about a third of what they were last year, due mostly to over-production, coupled with a slowing of demand.  Oddly the price of Edison drops has gone up. At the same time I picked up more rumours and some confirmation that very dark Edisons are indeed prone to colour fading.

edison, pearls, round, natural colour

Natural colour Edison round pearls size 11-12mm

This has been going around for about six months now and I was told that some Edisons have faded by firstly a seller and then by someone within Grace Pearl. This is happening possibly, I was told, because Grace are pushing the processing and treating the pearls too quickly and heavily, which is damaging their colour durability.

big natural colour edison pearls

Bigger colour metallic round Edison pearls 14-15mm.
Nice!

It may well be, however, that they are learning and backing off on these treatments and durability will therefore improve. Time will tell. Only the natural dark purple shades are apparently involved, not the pale ones, or whites, or ripples. Anyhow, I matched up some pairs of nice big natural colour rounds and some really clean round whites.

White 11-12mm round metallic Edison pearls

White 11-12mm round metallic Edison pearls

So..what else was a good find this time? How about this stunning strand of 9mm to 10.6 multicoloured metallic Tahitian pearls?

multicoloured tahitian pearl strand

This is a gorgeous strand of multicoloured Tahitians

Then I was browsing through some multicoloured akoyas (very nice) when I spotted a couple of white strands in with the natural coloured ones. ‘oh’ says the seller, ‘they shouldn’t be in there’..then he looks at the label and ‘oh, yes they should: they are natural colour whites’.

My hand shot out and grabbed them instantly. Natural white akoyas…natural white are so rare and hard to find. They haven’t been bleached and they haven’t been pinked. They are naturally white. These are 7mm, round and metallic. Little beauties

natural white akoya

Natural white 7mm metallic strands. I grabbed the only two in town

I have fallen in love, apparently, with any and all natural white pearls. This little lot of natural white freshwater rounds of different sizes literally fell onto my foot in a wholesaler’s office where there were all sorts of interesting odds of pearls tucked away under the big sorting table. So of course I had to have it

Natural white round pearls

Natural white round pearls, all different sizes

And were there any pairs?

Yes!

Then this lot of freeform baroques caught my eye. Incredibly metallic. natural white again

Natural white nuggets

Natural white nuggets

 

The rarest freshwater pearls are…

…natural white freshwater pearls, all nacre. And now I have a totally stunning necklace of these very special pearls.

I had spent the day at my favourite suppliers, head down and matching up all manner of pearls. Intermittently throughout the day the owner of the company, Michael Sze, sat opposite me, making up necklaces from loose undrilled pearls. I watched him as I took a break from matching pearls (you have to look up sometimes otherwise your eyes will fall out)

Michael worked his way through a bag of smaller bead nucleated smooth ripples, then a bag of large pale ripples (he liked that long endless necklace so much he had it drilled and knotted up immediately – you can see the knotting start to finish, including a huge tangle – in a video in the main P video listings. The knotting method is completely different to how we do it, but then I think there are as many different methods as there are knotters)

Finally, as I was thinking of finishing for the day, he brought out a small bag of maybe 500 or so white pearls…natural white pearls and started sorting them. My tired eyes went on stalks. These were simply beautiful pearls.

I started to camera phone video his selection of the choicest of these choice pearls and before I knew it I had fallen in love. Me – the queen of the bigger the better and natural coloured pearls.

 

By the time he was arranging them as a necklace I was buying them.

 

 

white natural colours, white freshwater pearls, michael sze

The finished necklace. 21 inches of beauty

Even my daughter, who isn’t remotely into pearls (!) commented ‘oh that is so beautiful, you can see the quality’

Why is it called the Romana necklace? Because it was bought with the proceeds from the sale of my 1973 Mini Clubman car ROM 308M…As a Dr Who fan, that was immediately Romanadvoratrelundar.

Updated October 2017

I made up the necklace finally

natural white freshwater pearl necklace

I’m in love..don’t want to take them off.

I’m so in love with these pearls still!

Hong Kong Gem Show, September 2017

There are times when I wish with all my exhausted being that Hong Kong was a bit nearer…sort of like the Isle of Man really. But it is probably just as well that it isn’t, because if I could just pop to the wholesalers every few days Pearlescence would probably be bankrupt within the week. It’s so easy to buy pearls. You just say ‘yes’ and hand over money.

We had a great time. Hard work for many hours but there were pearls. There were friends and there was round the world food. Hong Kong takes its food very seriously. There are a myriad of great places to eat, with examples of every cuisine within a few streets where ever you are. We had Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese (of course) and Nepalese.

So, what about those pearls. Quality is advancing by the month, but at the same time production is down and prices are consequently up. Throw in the drop in value of the £ against the USA $ and the Hong Kong $ and I have brought back a stash of stunning metallic pearls in all sorts of shapes and sizes, but the sadness is that prices must creep upward. When I first went to Hong Kong the HK$ exchange rate was 14HK$ to the £. Now it is 10.

 

Highlights from the trip.

1…Finding out that love of pearls does not necessarily fade with years

watching the President of the Hong Kong Pearl Association, Michael Sze, putting strands together from bags of loose pearls and clearly enjoying himself. Michael’s company is probably the supplier of the best quality freshwater pearls (no, not Grace) and he’s been in the pearl business well over 20 years but was still clearly enjoying himself putting strands together to take to the show which started in a couple of days. I spend a couple of days there, sitting opposite him for much of the second day as he made strands..watching and learning.

Qne special necklace made by Michael will be getting a blog entry all of its own

 

2 Huge Tahitians are coming soon

Catching up with Hisano Shepherd, of little h, and her strand of (souffle though they are not souffle) Tahitian pearls.

hisano shepherd souffle tahitians

Hisano Shepherd and her strand of not-souffle Tahitian pearls

These Tahitian pearls look like freshwater souffles and are as big and as lustrous but the growing method to force the rapid growth and large size and different. Hisano and husband Jeremy Shepherd found this strand in Tahiti when there recently. There were a few loose similar pearls on sale at the show from one seller, but the prices were very high. Betty Sue King has taken a few to be assessed and investigated by the GIA.

Selling these enormous pearls has only been possible in the last few months since the legal requirement of a certain depth of nacre over the nucleus for export has been abandoned. These pearls would fail and not be exportable as they have no solid nucleus. I’ve seen similar growing efforts with south sea pearls, although weirdly, some of them also have a regular nucleus. Farmers are clearly experimenting. These will be exciting pearls, and indications are that once they start appearing in numbers in the market the prices will be affordable.

3 Freshwater Souffles

If you love freshwater souffle pearls stock up now as they are not being grown, at least in any numbers. Indeed the wholesaler who was the major supplier did not have any. But big beaded pearls and smaller beaded pearls are as common as all nacre freshwaters now

4 what is that noise?

The first show I went to had this clatter clatter shake noise echoing round the hall occasionally. I didn’t work out what it was. It was only at my second show I managed to catch noise and action together. Pearls being sieved. Pearls are sieved to sort them into sizes. The noise is distinctive and now, when you get to attend the Hong Kong show you’ll know exactly what it is first time!

sieving pearls

sieving pearls

 

There are lots more short videos available on the Pearlescence Facebook page – here

South Sea surprise

Occasionally we have to trim back an irregular top on a drop pearl so a finding will set better.
I was filing a pointy tip off a blue south sea pearl today when the nacre ran out and i could see what looked like compressed peat inside.

Curious..of course.. I poked around inside.

There was fibrous peat like stuff brown

White waxy stuff in lumps.

Flakes of thin plastic like cling film

Flakes of plastic with fibres that looks like medical dressing tape


What was any of that doing inside a pearl?
Is this some sort of an attempt at a souffle south sea pearl?

Not expecting any of this stuff inside a pearl

I’ll take the pearl and its contents to Hong Kong with me and ask around, see if anyone has a clue

Blue Pearls…rare?

Blue pearls. Really rare. Right?

The answer to that is both yes..and no. Blue pearls are possible in every pearl type – akoya, South Sea, Tahitian and freshwater. But within each type they are ..yes..rare.

Akoya

Until quite recently akoya pearls were white and round and that was that.  Pesky pale pastel colours were bleached and then usually a delicate pink blush was added. That is how akoya pearls had been for decades. Round and white with a hint of pink. Then around five years ago akoya growers and dealers started to notice that freshwater pearls were selling by the hank in natural colours, not dyed or treated. The first natural colour untreated akoya pearls appeared at Hong Kong. They were sort of under the counter or right at the end, sort of an apology, next to the seas of white and round and shiny. They were also very cheap compared to their white relatives.

I had avoided the white and shineys…simply other sellers could hold stocks of all the variations of white, size, grade etc and do it better than me. But these pastel colours, well, that was me and I bought several strands just to see what they were like and if my pearl loving customers would love them. They did. Within a couple of weeks they had all gone. And the same at the next show. By the time around two years ago the akoya wholesalers were well wise to demand and those untreated pastel shades strands had shot up in price

Amongst the other pastel shades were faint blues . really really faint blues. The pearl was feeling-a-bit-chilly faint blue

natural colour chinese akoya rounds

These are natural chinese akoya round pearls. there are some touches of blue/grey colour..patchy and faint

Then Vietnamese akoya pearls appeared. And boy some of them had the most beautiful and indisputably blue shades of colour

I looked for the non-round strands and the baroque single undrilleds

vietnamese akoya

Strand of roundish elliptical blue/grey Vietnamese akoya pearls

blue akoya pearl

Single blue Vietnamese baroque akoya pearl.

 

 

 

 

 

Freshwater

One of the things I noticed last March in Hong Kong was a few – a very few- freshwater blue pearls. Blue pearls have been foreshadowed by the blues in ripple pearls for a couple of years. Some ripples have displayed patches of strong blue colour but blue freshwater pearls. That is something quite quite new.

I saw only a few, and then not really strong blue, as in the blue of facebook, for example, but in terms of gentle but definite blue – here is an example

Deeper blue solid nacre freshwater blue drop shaped pearl

Deeper blue solid nacre freshwater blue drop shaped pearl

freshwater hollow blue pearl

Huge 12 by 15 hollow freshwater pale sky blue south sea like pearl

There are, of course, still dyed blue freshwater pearls around, but, in a huge evolution to the market in the last few years, and apart from greys and blacks, it is really  rare to see the sort of garish dyed colours so common before. (and if we do see them at wholesale they are probably very old and dusty stock)

 

 

Tahitian

Tahitian black pearls are, of course, never black. Mostly they are greens, but very very occasionally there is a blue one. Often the blue is a patch, almost just a glimpse in a peacock effect on a green pearl, or a shimmer of overtone from a certain angle, but just occasionally a really individual oyster manages a true blue pearl such as the one shown here.

blue tahitian pearl

That blue tahitian was the inspiration for this handmade chain necklace in white gold.

 

Blue Tahitian pearl

Blue Tahitian pearl

 

 

 

 

 

Blue South Sea Pearls

Blue pearls from the south seas are perhaps the pearls we all think of when we think ‘blue pearls’. They are nearly the rarest of the south sea colours (the greens which are actually blues with organic reside inside (!) are probably the very rarest) and hauntingly beautiful. They come in shades from the palest blue – almost just a blush, to a deep dusty blue, but Royal Air Force uniform blue is the usual shade.

Charles Rennie Macintosh pearl - because the markings on the top are so like his classic art nouveau rose design

This is what I call the Charles Rennie Macintosh pearl – because the markings on the top are so like his classic art nouveau rose design

Huge hollow blue south sea baroque pearl.

Huge hollow blue south sea baroque pearl.

blue south sea pearl

We had some fun with some mis-shaped Blue south sea pearls I brought back from Hong Kong last trip and made them into what we’ve called ‘pokemon’ pearls – this is a little dancing man!

round blue pearl pendant

A pendant or enhancer is a great way to get started with blue south sea pearls. (This is a more classic simple round pearl if you aren’t a poke-fan)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, there we go. Blue pearls are possible in all pearl types. But as colours go, they are the exception rather than the rule.

Bangkok pearl factory

Head of Amsterdam Pearls Cees Van Oije invited me to visit Bangkok and to go around a sea pearls processing factory in the city.

This was a much bigger operation than the one I visited last year in China. It processed Akoya, South Sea and Tahitian pearls. Nevertheless the processes were just about identical. Pearls came in, were cleaned, sorted, drilled or not drilled, strung, graded and readied for the wholesale market.

akoya pearls

Minutely tiny natural colours akoyas. It’s hard to see but some of these tiny tiny pearls were vivid blue

tiny akoya

Imagine having to sort and assemble these tiny pearls into strands. Phew!

pwearls

More tiny pearls

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

north window

Sorting pearls using natural light from a north facing window

pearl drill

State of the art pearl drill. The cups are controlled by foot pedal and adjust to the correct pressure, both sides drill at once and when the cups release the pearl drops down a chute into a bowl

rows of graders

Pearls are made into strands using grooved boards and bamboo tweezers in front of a north facing window. The workday at the factory starts early to make the most of the north light

 

tahitian pearls

Tahitian pearls waiting to be sorted and graded

White South Sea pearls

White South Sea pearls