question about pearl blemishes

[tamlin]

Hi!
I was hoping that some of you pearl experts could help a newbie with a few questions!

Would a gem-quality strand of cultured freshwater pearls be allowed to have a few pearls with some pits in them? I mean, would the strand still be considered gem quality?

Also, would larger, gem-quality pearls necessarily have more blemishes than a smaller-mm sized strand of the same quality?

The reason I'm asking is that I'm comparing 2 strands that I own, and the larger 9mm gem-quality size strand has about 3 pearls with a few blemishes - a few pits on the surface of the pearl. I can't see any such blemishes on my 8mm gem-quality strand. The larger-sized strand is lovely - I plan on keeping it - I'm just wondering if this is normal.

Thanks for your help!
Tamlin

 

[jerin]

Hi Tamlin and welcome to the forum.

A gem-quality strand can and will of course have a couple of pearls with slighter blemishes, if I remember correctly though, this quality comes from 0,01% of all harvested pearls of a kind, in this case cultered freshwater pearls. Please remember that a pearl that is larger always runs a higher risk of getting pits or other blemishes, as it is in the shell for a much longer time than a pearl that is 1 mm lesser in size. So it is quite natural that the larger pearls have more blemishes than the smaller ones. And I think that your strand has somewhere between 45 - 49 pearls in size 9 mm, if you have a princess length (18"), 3 pearls seems to be quite OK procentually. The same goes for the roundness of a pearl - the shorter time in the mussel, the rounder....

Hope this helps you along. Enjoy your strands.

 

[tamlin]

Hi Inge!

Thanks so much for reassuring me - I thought that the pearls being larger and being inside the shell for much longer might have something to do with the fact that there were a few blemishes, but I was a little hazy on the actual definition of "gem quality." (And, see, I took your original advice and ended up with a 9mm strand, too!) Now my only problem is figuring out if there's any kind of pearl shortener that can shorten a princess length strand into a choker.

Thanks again!
Tamlin