BabyNurse and everyone else, I hope you’ll forgive me for hijacking this thread for just a minute. I’m new here; this is my first post. I’ll try to be fast, but I think this is indirectly relevant to the thread, and I hope you get a kick out of it.
I don’t come from a pearl-having family, or really a jewelry-loving family. But I’ve always wanted the classic strand of white pearls, and this year decided to finally get a strand for my first mother’s day.
I knew almost nothing about pearls. I knew I wanted the classic white string, knew I wanted them to be from salt water oysters, I didn’t want fresh water (didn’t know why, frankly, only that I’m a purist by nature and white salt water pearls were the only thing that were “pearls” in my mind). I knew cultured were grown on farms and that cultured was pretty much the only type of pearl out there any longer. I knew I didn’t like Tahitian pearls (and I was surprised I remembered the name of those “big, pointless, black” pearls), I didn’t see the point of (white) south sea pearls (they were just expensive, really big white pearls, after all), and I had a vague notion gold pearls and a few other colored pearls existed. Round pearls were “good”, non-round were junk or close-to-junk. But I wanted my white strand.
So, I googled and a few online retailers popped up. I think a few local brick and mortar stores may have, too, but if they did, not many. I quickly realized I’d be purchasing these online, which I was comfortable with, if I could find the right store (I’ve purchased other jewelry online and have been quite happy). I kept looking at all of the sites’ strands, different sizes, different grades, then researched what grades were (pearls had different grades? Who knew?), with every little bit of information, I realized there was so much I didn’t know (and I should add that I’m a researcher by nature, I research everything to the nth degree), so google, google, google, and I found PG.
I should say this strand would not be the first pearls I owned. For my wedding, my parents had offered to get me a pair of diamond or pearl earrings. I was getting married on the beach, and I didn’t want them to spend much anyway, so I opted for pearls. I went into the jewelers where we’d purchased our wedding rings, said I wanted some pearl studs, and the very nice, long-time-in-business jeweler pulled out the one pair in the display case, told me they were $118 (I think), the posts were 14k yellow gold, and that was that. No discussion about quality (he may have mentioned they were round, but I certainly don’t remember as I was not focused on that at all (of course they were round, I could see that and what else would pearls be?), no talk of sizes, no confirmation of the type of pearl (akoya what?).
I am also the proud owner of a pearl pendant made with a pearl from an oyster I got to see come out of the oyster shell, purchased at a kiosk on the pier in San Francisco. I didn’t think pearls were raised in the waters off of San Francisco, but I guessed because it was on the water, tourists like myself thought of pearls while visiting and so someone flew (salt water) oysters in for us to buy. How wonderful! The jewelry piece they offered to put the pearl into was expensive, but how wonderful to have a reminder of our trip. Plus, how often would I be purchasing pearls and could pick the setting? And that was so wonderful, and opening the oyster only cost $15 and if that oyster didn’t have a pearl, they’d let me open another and another until I got a pearl, and $15 for a pearl sure seemed like a good price (after all, they WERE pearls), so I opened 4 more and got 4 pearls more for only another $60! And, I could save them and get the put into a piece some other time. What an opportunity for me! That was 5 or 6 years ago, I think. No pearls since.
Back to finding PG. I found a number of threads on the various online retailers, and learned some were very reputable and others were maybe not so much so. I was able to narrow it down to a few I felt really comfortable with, based on years’ worth of posts on PG. But now, which strand. Then I came across a thread of a gentleman who wanted to buy his wife a strand like I was looking for, and had purchased 3 hanadama strands for his wife to choose. He posted photos and while all 3 were really beautiful, and I felt like I now had a better appreciation of what to look for (though these were so lovely I think even novice me would have been able to see their glow), I knew I wanted natural white hanadama from PP. That was about a month ago.
So, I am now the actually-proud owner of an 8-8.5, 18” natural white hanadama strand from PP. I love that necklace and want to practically cuddle up with it at night. But in all of my reading on PG, I had seen photos of some interesting pearls that, lo and behold, I was liking. Tahitians aren’t just dull and black, they aren’t all round, freshwater can be lovely and colorful, South Sea pearls had a quality different than the smaller salt water ones, the smaller salt water ones were called ‘akoya’…
And now I get to the relevancy to this thread. I have the bug; I’m in love with all things pearl. It is due to a lot of what I read on PG, but I think the biggest factor was this sole thread. BabyNurse, your collection has been, literally, life changing for me. Not in the sense that the cure for cancer has been revealed to me or anything quite so monumental, but I have absolutely found a new love. I’ve always loved jewelry and have collected pieces over the years, but other than my classic strand, I was not interested in anything else pearl-related (except for the fabulous piece I was going to design for my 4 heirloom pearls from San Francisco). But I’m interested now and in a major way. I can’t stop thinking about pearls. On the train to work, at the grocery store, walking around the mall with the baby, jogging, when I see women, I often automatically think of what sort of pearls would look good with what they are wearing. It’s really funny how instinctive it is, I don’t try, images just pop into my head.
I’ve had such a wonderful time reading this and other threads and seeing photos of everyone’s pearls. Thank you all so much, and thank you for sharing the beauty of your collections with me (even though you didn’t know you were doing it), and also where to browse others (Kojima, Cardellini, Kamoka, etsy listings by some members here, etc. I would never have found these sites either).
Sorry it was longer than I thought it would be, but I enjoyed sharing and I hope you get a kick out of it. Please keep the photos coming.
-Brittany, the fortunate owner of the hanadama strand mentioned above; a 18” freshwater peachy lavender multicolor also from PP; a tiny (2.3-3mm) 16” strand from little h; a soon-to-be arriving floating Tahitian from Kamoka (I never liked floating pendant necklaces, but I saw this beauty and almost cried for fear someone would get it before I could), and a possible soon-to-be owner of a Tahitian on a leather band also from Kamoka (I bought 2, one for my nephew for his June birthday and the other to take advantage of a welcome discount, but I had to purchase a certain dollar amount. I am going to decide later whether to be greedy and keep this second one for myself or share with someone else. I don’t think my husband will wear it, but I wish he would); future owner of as many lovely types, sizes, colors and shapes of pearls as our bank account will allow
