Funny story about buying pearls

[Raisondetre]

My bestie wore the freshadama studs I gave her to this store in New Zealand. Owner was from China. Sold only Akoyas. What happened was there were three 6.5-7.0 mm white Akoya strands on sale, marked down to US$80 from US$180. The owner told my friend that CFWP were the cheapest and most readily available pearls (this part is true) and that they could be cultured for just one month before it was ready for sale. He made it seem as if Akoyas cultured for 6 months were the best quality available. Said Tahitians were the most rare/expensive rather than the South Seas. It's a good thing I didn't tell her about Sea of Cortez/Cook Island exotic pearls. Owner then saw the freshadamas and said she must be a regular Akoya buyer just looking at the quality of the studs. He promptly shut up when she told him those were freshwaters. Didn't seem to know that Akoyas are PPBs rather than solid nacreous formations. Out of the three strands, only the strand my friend picked was lustrous - the others appeared dull to her eyes and the owner still claimed it was marked down because of the stocktake clearance (new financial year starts July 1st in Australia/NZ).

When I inspected the strand I could tell the nacre was extremely thin - the luster was quite good, typical of the metallic mirror finish (likely treated for this size and culture length), but there were blemishes that almost made it seems like the nacre was almost ready to peel off. My friend paid US$40 for it after getting a voucher off a family friend. I told her it was quite pretty, good for costume jewellery, but the luster will be lost quite quickly due to the depth of the nacre. It was lucky she didn't pay full price for it. For something that'll only last about 6 months I'm torn as to whether it's a great deal for the traditionally pricey Akoyas (claimed to be Made in Japan, impossible for this size) or whether it's a piece of expensive costume jewellery. She doesn't wear it that often so I guess it'll last her a while, so she's happy about it. I've totally convinced her it's cultured in China.

The funniest part was when my friend started asking questions about the body color, overtone, luster, surface blemishing etc basic questions, he thought she was a spy from a competitor. My bestie is just glad that I did the research so she knew what was happening when she shopped for jewellery.

Nothing too exciting ... just the run of the mill jewellery who knows next to nothing about pearl story. I did my research on the internet. I just wonder how lazy these people are ...

 

[Caitlin]

Golly! This forum sure does its job! Good work!

 

[jshepherd]

Can you imagine how small a freshwater pearl would be if it were only cultured for one month?!

Spending a few hours on this forum is more of a pearl education than more than 99% of the jewelers of the world have ever had. Isn't it a good feeling to be empowered with that sort of knowledge when shopping? You can spot a scam or a bad deal a mile away.

 

[xeresana]

I have given up on jewelers for pearls. I have heard some insanely dumb comments from jewelers about pearsl. My favorite lines have been:

Saltwater pearls are *always* round. If it's not perfectly round, it's surely freshwater.

Once when asking to see an overpriced freshwater keishi strand in the case of one of our nicest jewelry stores in town, the sales person looked at the tag which said "keishi" and said, "Keishi? Oh...uh...yes...Keishi. I believe they're a very fine producer of pearls, like Mikimoto." Yes, yes...nice save.

And my very favorite...once, while passing through a major department store at the mall, I overheard a customer ask a salesgirl what made one pair of pearl earrings more expensive than another pair (mind you, both pairs were on the little spinning earring tree-thingie that sits on top of the display counters so I'm sure both were very low end freshwater) and the salesgirl actually said, "Oh well, this pair may not have been cleaned as well, it may have a little sand on it or something, so it is less expensive." Now, I had not yet discovered that I loved pearls. I did not yet know a thing about pearls. But, I tell you, it stopped me dead in my tracks. I stood there, staring in disbelief at that statement and then at the customer who said, "Oh. OK." and BOUGHT the "sandy" pair for the value!!! Can you BELIEVE someone accepted that explanation??? Amazing.

 

[knotty panda]

Ok, this isn't about buying, but it's about a jeweler with GIA attached to his name (which stands for "G"ee, "I" oughta know, but don't so, I'll "A"d lib). My apologies to Jeremy for this story right up front!

I bought a strand of golden SS baroques from PP. About a week later, I was window shopping and saw some SS rounds 12-15 MM which I took a closer look at. The jeweler explained they were natural for a mere $20 grand, but nice guy that he is, he was willing to negotiate.

I queried him several times -- natural? Natural? You mean, NATURAL? Each time he replied, yes, natural.

I was wearing PP's GSS and took them off to show Mr. GIA. Mr. GIA told me he thought they very good quality GSS pearls, however, he was quite sure they were purchased illegally and passed on to me. I had blackmarket pearls!

You see, the pearl divers, he explained, (they have divers at farms?) rip off the pearls from the owners and sell them on the street. That is the only way that I could have obtained such a nice strand.

I laughed myself silly right there in the store.

 

[jshepherd]

Did the GG guy keep a straight face when giving you that story? I even started laughing half way through.

Black market South Sea pearls... what will they think of next!

 

[knotty panda]

Oh yeah! And he was smug about it too! Yet another dumb customer he needed to educate. Want his name?

 

[Raisondetre]

Talking about divers my mom totally bought into this story when she was in Korea. For some reason they passed by a pearl farm and she saw pearl divers jumping into a body of water at a pearl farm in Cheju Island or something. I was totally baffled when she told me it was a dying trade as the pearl divers got asthma from the water pressure etc. I know they can get barotrauma but they don't actually carry tanks. The part I don't understand is why there would be pearl divers on a pearl farm.

 

[salem]

LOL, Knotty, you have tears running down my face from laughter. Love the G.I.A. unofficial definition. Black market pearls huh? Off the street? Sounds shady! What a wonderful story. If Jeremy has time, he should give him a little call. Or invite him to jpin us here on the forum!

 

[knotty panda]

I still have this mental image of Jeremy looking over his shoulder for the band of renegade pearl farmers seeking their wares back while he's trying to "score" some pearls LOL. Salem, you must have a ton of stories to share.

 

[youngster]

All of your stories are just too funny and made me laugh out loud! Mental images of pearl divers and Jeremy running down a dirt road with bags of pearls slung over his back. . .