Nacre thickness on tahitians?

[Kelly]

Hi all, been a while. Hope everyone is well and having happy pearl trails!

I've a question, which I should know the answer to, but alas do not. My eyes are roaming to a pair of tahitian studs. For years I have just not gotten into the groove of tahitian studs, and then wham! I find myself hankering after a pair. Not just any pair mind you, but when we find each other, both of us will know. It's a chemistry thing.

So tell me, do the larger tahitians have thicker nacre, or is nacre pretty standard across the sizes? Are the nuclei proportionate to the size of the pearl? Sadly I know little about tahitians, so leave nothing out.

Pistachio, peacock, silver, blue...what to do, what to do...

 

[Josh]

Hi Kelly,
Good question. As a rule, the larger the pearl, the more they will tend to get nearer to the government regulation 0.8mm on each side of the nucleus. As oysters grow older they tend to lose their capacity to produce layers of abundant, quality nacre (big surprise, right?). The key part of all this is the gov. reg. part. To this day, many of the pearls that find their way to Asia and most specifically Hong Kong, have managed to evade the mandatory controls.
As for studs though, you might not want the biggun's that I'm talking about (11mm and above). I say that knowing absolutely nothing about your intentions. OK, I'll be quiet now.
Anyway, good luck in your search!

 

[Adeline Leigh]

Hi Kelly,
The key part of all this is the gov. reg. part. To this day, many of the pearls that find their way to Asia and most specifically Hong Kong, have managed to evade the mandatory controls.

No, Josh, don't be quiet. You've piqued my interest. How so? I find that point you raised interesting. So you mean tahitians are government controlled exports and some of these in my part of the world aren't regulated? Does this mean these pearls could be thinner in nacre than their regulated cousins?

 

[KarinK]

Adeline, below-quality Tahitians are smuggled to China and sold there. We had a long talk about it in a thread at one point. I'll see if I can find it later.

- Karin

 

[Adeline Leigh]

Ah, I see, Karin. Many thanks if you could surface it. That was probably before my interest in tahitians

 

[Josh]

Hi Adeline,
Yeah, unfortunately there are still enormous quantities finding their way onto the Hong Kong market that have never passed Tahitian export controls. The export statistics, if you can call them that, are wildly, ridiculously incoherent and you can see the proof at just about any show where Tahitian pearl vendors show up. Pearls with calcite rings or dead spots are the obvious give-aways. The less obvious are the ones with thin nacre which you can only detect by x-ray or drilling, two things that you typically do AFTER purchasing the pearl.

 

[Adeline Leigh]

Tks, Josh. I'm going in with my eyes wide open...

 

[Kelly]

Where are my manners? Thanks for the reply Josh. Been away in the Canadian Rockies and my mind was far from pearly thoughts.

I had almost convinced myself that I don't want a pair of tahitian studs cuz I sure a shootin' don't need a pair, and the bears don't care how you look. Then you come back to town, wash all your t-shirts and jeans and get to thinking that the ensemble would look very nice with a pair of Kamoka studs. Damn internet

 

[DavidL]

Also to (sadly) see what happenes to the ones that don't pass 0.8mm threshold on inspection check out Josh's blog
http://buy.kamokapearls.com/blogs/pearly-blog

 

[LouiseH]

Kelly, that made me laugh out loud!

 

[newberry]

Thanks David for posting the link to Josh's blog because I would have missed it. It explains a lot.