Natural Bahraini Pearls

[GemGeek]

I must admit, I would adore to have one of Reem's baroques. Seeing such lovely pearls is to understand why they were once reserved for royalty.

 

[Valeria101]

... those 1930s beauties are now mine?

What are you saying, exactly?

 

[Caitlin]

Shireen = High luster, round pearls of clean skin (no prejudice about color or size)
Jiwan = Pink to somewhat lavender
Sindaali = Flesh pink to peach
Nabatee = Golden cream
Sofri = Deep golden
Abiyadh = Translucent white no cream tone possible overtones are silver and/or ros?
Khardil = Dark/black colored pearls (some include here purplish lavender)

Hi Reem
I found this list list elsewhere. Does it mean anything to you? How correct is it?

 

[Slraep]

Lu'lu, durr and marjan, what is the difference between them?

Slraep

 

[Slraep]

What about these amazing colours, Caitlin? The colour of daylight. And the colour of nocturnal dew. How lovely to imagine!

Ibn Hamzah says:

"They have upon them rubies, jewels, mercury-like silver and threaded pearls like the colour of the daylight."


Qays bin Malluh writes:

"She has upon her body, pearls made by the jeweller, as if the night has released her stone of dew."

Slraep

 

[Caitlin]

smeltzer:

But in all things one must have standards, and those 1930s beauties are now mine…

Hi Steve,
You have truly reached the heart of pearldom. Persian Gulf pearls set the standard in both quality and quantity for thousands of years, with Bahrain (Dilmun) leading. I appreciate and support Bahrain's stance on making cultured pearls illegal in Bahrain-someone has to maintain the standard!

Since major pearl production almost died in the 1930's, the beds have lain undisturbed, the mollusks growing ever larger and the pearls inside, as well. I said a couple of years ago on this forum that the pearls would be many and large, if they start pearling around Bahrain again.

I have also said that If the new pearlers use x-rays, they could save the lives of many mollusks and replace them lovingly if they don't have pearls. Instead of culturing pearls in baskets, they can just tend the natural beds carefully as they go. Now those are some pearls!

 

[SteveM]

?the heart of pearldom.

Makes prior discussions concerning orient, water, iridescence, etc. pretty mundane. If the photo indicates these qualities, then what must they be like in person?

What are you saying, exactly?

That is hilarious. I now see my unintended double entendre. Rest assured, those pearls remain only a dream, and we have not struck oil. For the moment we've got to remain satisfied with our Tongarevan mini-Bahrainis from the Cooks, which are actually comparable if one omits size as a factor!

 

[NaturalPearls]

Shireen = High luster, round pearls of clean skin (no prejudice about color or size)
Jiwan = Pink to somewhat lavender
Sindaali = Flesh pink to peach
Nabatee = Golden cream
Sofri = Deep golden
Abiyadh = Translucent white no cream tone possible overtones are silver and/or ros?
Khardil = Dark/black colored pearls (some include here purplish lavender)

Hi Reem
I found this list list elsewhere. Does it mean anything to you? How correct is it?

Sorry it took me so long to get back, I was quite busy with the family.
Shireen = High luster, round pearls of clean skin (no prejudice about color or size) The definition is right, but its usually used for the white pearls and they dont have to be round pearls.
Jiwan = Pink to somewhat lavender Jiwan is G1, its one of the pearl categories which includes Dana, Button and Sejny(the drop shape pearls). Some people say G1 means Grade one.
Sindaali = Flesh pink to peach Never heard of this word before, maybe they meant Sinqibasy but that means dark grey pearls
Nabatee = Golden cream We still use this word thesedays, for the cream and golden cream pearls
Sofri = Deep golden Yellow in arabic is Asfar, so maybe thats how they came up with Sofri, but I never heard anyone use it here in Bahrain
Abiyadh = Translucent white no cream tone possible overtones are silver and/or ros?Abiyadh in arabic is White.
Khardil = Dark/black colored pearls (some include here purplish lavender)No idea what does it mean.

 

[NaturalPearls]

Lu'lu, durr and marjan, what is the difference between them?

Slraep

Lu'lu & Durr both mean pearls, lulu is used more nowadays.

Marjan: is coral.

 

[Valeria101]

Yiks! Funny what a solid language barrier can do...

And old word for coral in Romanian is 'margean' still used along the modern 'coral'. I had no idea where the old one came from, but it makes sense now that the use of names changed along with the source of the material.

 

[NaturalPearls]

I must admit, I would adore to have one of Reem's baroques. Seeing such lovely pearls is to understand why they were once reserved for royalty.

GemGeek: still sticking to the baroques, never the round ones ha?? hehehe baroques are being in demand nowadays!

 

[Valeria101]

baroques are being in demand nowadays!

With all the round fakes around? Hell, yes!

 

[Valeria101]

I found this list list elsewhere...

Where from? Strack?

 

[Caitlin]

From Zeide.

 

[pattye]

She got us again!

 

[SteveM]

Where from? Strack?

Allowing for Zeide's translation from German, yes, most certainly from Strack (p. 140). On p. 139 Strack provides an even more elaborate definition for nabatee as Arabic for the yellow-ish pink (apricot) color of raw sugar.

I had thought it generally recognized here that Zeide, a native German speaker, took advantage of her temporarily 'exclusive' access to Perlen for pontification on everything, including coconut, tridacna and elephant pearls (she sadly missed Nagasari Tree!).

Also from Strack (p. 138): '…Islam sees pearls as a precious gift from God and deems cultured pearls a blasphemy.'
TO WIT…

 

[Slraep]

Ah yes, my old friend(and foe), the infamous scholar and pearl expert, Zeide G. Erskine. She was also an authority on fine wines(never actually saw a bottle of the good stuff in all her life), fine chocolates(that's a laugh), fine gemstones(yuck yuck), fine Inuit artrolleyes, fine gourmet foods(didn't know a bolete from a matsutake), fine genealogical lineages(heheheheheh, Caitlin) .....and Steve, had she been allowed to stay a little longer, you would have found her to be an authority on pianos and nagasari tree pearls too!! Did I miss anything? Oh yeah, she has a castle in France.

Slraep

 

[Slraep]

Yiks! Funny what a solid language barrier can do...

And old word for coral in Romanian is 'margean' still used along the modern 'coral'. I had no idea where the old one came from, but it makes sense now that the use of names changed along with the source of the material.

Actually "marjan" would mean coral in Arabic. But in some texts, they use the word to mean small pearls, possibly seed pearls.

Is the same Arabic spoken in Bahrain and Iraq? That could account for discrepancies.

Slraep

 

[Caitlin]

Zeide is a housewife from Fresno whose husband does some translating to-from German. Frankly, I quit believing she is a native German speaker, at all.

Unfortunately, most of her pontifications were out and out made up lies that never came from Strack. I have removed 500 of her posts, but still have 1,000 to go........

BTW Strack got the Pearl of Allah wrong. She stated that it was sold in 1980 and currently in Tahiti, owned by Robert Wan, though she admits that was not a confirmed statement (pp204-205)

 

[SteveM]

Clearly she had plenty of time on her hands! Back to pearls that speak for themselves?Reem's grandfather's pearls are worth reposting (reframed) so they don't get buried down the thread?