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Pearls are sold loose and undrilled at auction in lots of thousands at a time long before they drilled and made into strands.

Mikimoto is only recognising pearls which they might have sold. They are guessing, based on their initial buying criteria. Of course other brands can select ones of similar quality.

If the clasp is big and 18ct with diamonds that will be a chunk of the price.

Pearls are produced by living molluscs, often one per shell. At some time between the pearl farm and your ears a person has sat down with maybe a few hundred pearls of roughly the same size and tried to pick out ones of the same size, with the same surface quality, the same colour and overtones...

Pearl farms are working farms and usually not set up for casual visitors and retail sales (they simply don't drill etc for example) I've been very fortunate to visit a south sea and an akoya farm for several days each time, through the generosity of their owner, but both times I was put to work...

The thing is, far too many people ask for advice or an opinion, then pout when it isn't the advice or opinion they want.

They're all very design-y and not very wearable.

I thought freshwater initially but the colour is so uniformly black while normally freshwaters dyed black present with different colours depending on how the dye takes. While akoya tend to be uniformly very black.

Yes, could be dyed akoyas. We don't see many deep-dyed black akoya these days. I had a real task trying to find a couple of decent pairs for a customer last Hong Kong.

Part of the problem with setting it is that you are -literally - setting a round hole onto a square peg. I would recommend you find a new pearl for the ring. You can set it yourself easily. Use epoxy or (my preference) gel superglue. Vital you clean all that old glue off. Glue does not stick to...

Not my area of specific expertise but I would expect a GIA certificate. That certificate, from an unknown assessor, just says it is a real pearl as opposed to imitation.

The official record is kept on parchment in bound volumes. I can still remember being completely awed sitting in Goldsmith's Hall as my initials and shape were formally entered into the relevant maker's mark volume.

There's websites with info going back to 1300! It's the actual letter, plus the shape it is in, plus the typeface.

It seems to me that, from your posts, you simply don't know enough about pearls to deal in them at the moment. Unless you have a lot of money to lose. Pearls are not a get rich quick commodity. You can't seem to work out how to buy your stock, let alone sell it. And buying pearls is the easy...

Yes. and yes. :arms: When? I do like 'making my mark' except when I have to pay the fee!

Confusion over trademarks does highlight the value of a proper system of hallmarking, where goods are assayed by an unimpeachable authority and then clearly marked, backed up by legal sanctions for fraud. Our hallmarking system dates back to goldsmiths assaying precious metals and coins since...

1These may be pearls from a decade or more ago, when freshwater button pearls were more common and often did get made into necklaces. Jeremy is totally correct. Now they are usually seen as half drilled or undrilled to go for earrings as pairs or they do make an easier-to-set as it is a...

While you might think (not unreasonably) that I am biased, you will probably not find bargains or mystic discoveries of genuine tahitian pearl necklaces for $1 on eBay or Etsy. You will find some reasonable sellers but you will also find many scammers - there's another thread with some glaringly...

Keishi are formed when a mollusc forms a 'wild' pearl rather than a cultured or farmed pearl. They can result from injury or other external factors or they can be a planned production. They form in all types of pearl producing shells The pearls in the OP are dyed freshwater farmed pearls. In...

Since you are in a member state of the EU you can buy from any other state and there's no issue with tax or duty, as there would be from the USA (or while we are being nationally stupid) the UK Since you were initially happy with these pearls, so long as the price is not ridiculous, wear and...