Nacre Thickness in Hanadama/Madama

[MK Fine Pearls]

Dear All,
I am still in search of my first Hanadama or, rather in the gathering info stage of my search.
Per my understanding, Hanadama has a range of quality under its umbrella.
I see names like "top range", ten-nyo, etc. and they are a bit confusing. Does it depend on nacre thickness? For instance, 0.4mm vs 0.6 will result in a range in luster, right? Thus, it would result in a better quality Hanadama?
TIA!

 

[Pearl Dreams]

Luster and nacre thickness are interrelated but not the same.

A pearl needs thick nacre to have excellent luster (a thin-nacre pearl will not have great luster) but that doesn't mean that a pearl with .6mm of nacre will necessarily have better luster than a pearl with .4mm of nacre.

There was thread about some of these issues last year:
[h=1]Tenjo Grade?[/h]

 

[Lugana]

Hanadamas and madamas - you really would want to see a few strands side by side to choose from. Once they meet certain requirements and are high-graded, there is still a lot of difference between them. Certificates will say nothing of it, so the only real way is to look/ compare strands.

As Pearl Dreams says, the nacre thickness doesn't automatically contribute to luster quality (while nacre thinness, below .3mm-.2mm or its unevenness, does mean lower quality indeed).

Just a note, I would have a closer look at natural white akoyas, I think PP still has some certified natural white hanadamas. They do look different to "normal" hanadamas

 

[MK Fine Pearls]

Thank you, Ladies, for your replies.
Upon further reading, I remembered that luster and nacre thickness is indeed not so correlated, as thick nacre of SSP produces a softer luster than mirror-sharp luster of a high-quality Akoya.
As virtually all sources of Hanadama, available for me are, well... virtual, it is really hard to compare strands and pick one. Maybe I should hold off until the end of July when I (hopefully) will be able to attend the annual Ruckus, compare the strands and buy one.