83 Abalone

[Valeria101]

The new-ish long list of natural Abalone at Multicolour.com appears to be the largest 'aggregation' of natural abalone pearls listed in any one place with (bold!) prices & all:

Take a look:

http://www.multicolour.com/catalogue/?/desc/natural_abalone_pearls/


You might remember the smaller one at Pearl Paradise that has been on for a while now: http://www.pearlparadise.com/pearl-paradise-natural-abalone-pearls.htm

...all these things at arm's length online yet different.

 

[Miriam Reed]

It would be fun to play around with a few of them and see what kind of designs we could come up with. The colors and orient on some of the ones from Pearl Paradise are simply wonderful.

 

[J Marcus]

I spot checked about 1/3 of the abalone pearls on Multicolor.com and found that they all seem to fall into three price per carat catagories. They were either about $640.00 pc, $240.00 pc or $160.00 pc. No middle ground or range of price between these. Does anyone else find this strange?

 

[Valeria101]

Not seriously so... The price of the object seems more significant then whatever turn to be the price per carat for something with such unusual shapes, sizes and uses. Besides, they are big and expensive enough... not sure what a difference in per carat prices of $10 or $1 tells me. I don't usually look at that, but at the use and potential total price of the finished wearable object. Especially for such a gem where the setting might turn up at least as expensive as the pearl... unless one strings them for wear on a leather cord or something (not that many of those pearls seem to qualify for that, with their thinner ridges and what not).

It could be just my way of looking at things, but I have heard others with similar views too... Can't say how popular this is.

The few with relatively un-spotted and unbroken skins (and macroscopic size) seem more wearable then the much larger patchy blobs with uncertain use... It seems normal that prices reflect the gap.

 

[J Marcus]

If this is standard proceedure for abalone pearls then it's different than any other type of gem I've ever had any experience with. Still, I'm not sure that there is any such thing as standard proceedure for natural abalone pearls. Just too rare.

 

[Valeria101]

... I'm not sure that there is any such thing as standard procedure for natural abalone pearls. Just too rare.

And rarer still in jewelry.

Must say more clearly: my opinion is based on very little - observing jewelry, with the assumption that someone already applied some selection criteria ('grading'?) thoroughly to those pearls that went on to receive costly casings. Since these pearls demand custom work and tend to appear more in high end contexts, the practice comes handy.

However, there is only very little to see even considering the massive photo archives auctioneers cultivate. With at least three jewelers sstting these things consistently posting here, it's a crowd, relatively. And of these, I can only remember one pendant using a large contorted pearl in an abstract, modernistic setting; the rest appear to favour the smaller whole-skinned pearls.

At least for those smooth natural abalone pearls though, the sky is the limit fr where thy could go - some of the most striking jewelry of all times, seriously. It is much harder to see any at all in a 'mundane' (or attainable) setting. But again, publicity around jewelry tends to be skewed that way, so... what do I know.


Now, I don't pretend this is a systematic survey, just a 'can opener' at best...

For once, these things could well be collectible even if not intended for immediate jewelry use. Like precious stones also are quite often too (although the potential for use definitely is a factor).