Tag Archives: akoya pearls

Last day in Hong Kong

Well here it is, last day. The time has passed so quickly, but now the show is closed`and there are no more pearls to be bought by me before the early morning flight and the alarm clock is set. Today was a gentle browsing day. I found some baroque bouldery little pearls which will make great earrings to go with the Spica Vietnamese grey big colour strands

akoya pearls

Bouldery baroques from Vietnam

The colours are intense and amazing – so powerful for such tiny little pearls

Then I came across some cutest baby ripples with strong colours at a bargain price. Couldn’t resist

ripple pearls

very strongly coloured baby ripples

These pearls came from the same stable as the finest Edison pearls – bead nucleated pearls – with strands costing many £kkkk. Felt smug that,because the firm did not manage its second harvest in March (due apparently to local government actions – it’s the same the world over) there were no more of the vibrant deep pinks as per my present to myself. Closest was this deep purple-ish strand – very expensive – but, like most purples, not metallic and the purple was grubbied with a brown cast. All pinks to purples are prone to drop to beige brown.

Purple Edison strand

Purple Edison strand

Finally I had a play with a lot of button-ish metallics. These will be stunning set on rings

Metallics

Metallics

And…….home.

Bye-bye Hong Kong for this year. It’s been a wonderful trip with good friends, great food and fabulous pearls.

Gem show day

Opening day for the Gem show. Since I had the bulk of what I wanted already this was a nice day to browse and select just those few unusual items which make the trip even more worthwhile.

I’m not a huge akoya pearl person. There are too many people who specialise in a very specialised market where competition is fierce and often comes down to price…in which ccase the big expert boys can bulk buy and get better deals. At the other end it is all too easy to be sold some cheap shiny beads with a microns thick layer of nacre which will disappear within a year. That is sadly the end of the market where the discount sellers operate. Since buyers are almost invariably disappointed with their bargain pearls we can all end up tarnished with that same brush.

With pearls there really are no surprise bargains. Everyone really does know the price of what is being sold.

HOwever, I’ve been happy to dip a toe in the outskirts of the akoya market with some of the more unusual colours and baroque which I can get for a great price.

So I was really pleased to spot these few really strongly coloured (natural colours) rainbow greyish Vietnamese rounds from Spica.

vietnamese akoya pearls

Very colourful Vietnamese akoya pearls

A lot of browsing around the rows of Akoya stands and I found these lovely creamy akoya. Bigger, and each a different colour, one quite pinky and another almost buttermilk. Again natural colours

cream to buttermilk natural colour akoyas

cream to buttermilk natural colour akoyas

Plenty of dyed grey, some black and many dyed gold akoya around as well as white white. Both pinked and unpinked. But no natural pastel multicoloureds this time.

Since by this time I had been walking up and down for about three hours I decided to sit down at the home of Edison pearls with my friend Cicie who set me to ‘play about’ with some really nice Edison rounds. I can’t help it, Put pearls in front of me and I make pairs. These were lush colours and besides finding a couple to add in to my March birthday present to me necklace I found the earring pair .. and a coupe more. Looking at Edison rounds. Bliss.

edison pearls

my earring pair. 13.5

edison pearls

These haven’t come out well, they are in fact a deep purple. With no trace of brown.

Finally. Having bemoaned the ear wax yellow of dyed south sea and freshwater pearls I spotted these fireballs. Haggle haggle with perhaps the wimpiest haggler I’ve ever met (I stopped before he paid me to take them away but only just) I got these two strands just for funness

dyed gold fireballs

dyed gold fireballs