Good call Pearl Dreams.
Hello again Artpearl. Indonesia has an Industry that also uses Pinctata Maxima. Meaning they grow the same pearls as us. As do the philippines.
Quite a few years back, Alex Kailis (2nd biggest SSPearl producer in Australia, at the time) was in my shop on Thursday Island. I asked him about his families percentage of Gold as opposed to Silver. He said "quite low but, if you want real gold pearls go to the Phillipines. No one does Gold like they do".
Now that comment was from the son of one of the founders of our great but young Australian South Sea Pearl Industry. You must understand though, The Australian industry has from the outset been focused on Large Round Silver (most like to call them white) Pearls. Gold pearls despite their individual beauty for years have been a nice sideline in the pursuit of silver. On a marketing level I was personally involved in re-establishing international awareness of the Torres Strait Pearl Industry. What I First hand experienced was an intense desire (You could call it a lust) to "have a Gold Pearl" amongst consumers. It was quite ammazing to see first hand how many people over fifty years that declared they had never seen Gold Pearls before. I should point out this response came from people from all over the world. I had clients from virtualy every corner of the globe.
It was a facinating time of my life, face to face contact with clients hopping on and off ships. Thats where I learnt of the lack of knowledge amongst the general public about Pearls. Hence my support of the Pearl-Guide.
Sorry I began to digress again. We can grow Good Golds, its just that in the past no-one put in the effort. Bron and I on our small scale are working towards (we hope) Sixty/Fourty, White and Gold.
Now there's a general acceptance amongst old hands in the industry that the west coast produces a higher percentage of siver cream than the east coast (australia).
East coast has a higher percentage of silver grey. I do not dispute this.
We are in the early stages of studying environmental reasons for variance. That's not for discussion at this stage.
Now, Baroque Pearls are an informal shape. Circle pearls have the groves around them, usually multiple. Circledrops or Drop circles have a nice pretty formal drop shape with maybe one or two grooves. Now anyone with a basic understanding of the english language could be confused with that.
So, try this, As a Pearl Farmer circle pearls bring the lowest price. Somewhere along the line some circles will become drops or circledrops because you can get more money, money money for them.
Sorry about that but we also need to buy food.
I'm not out working because it's bucketing down rain and has been for several days. We are currently in what I hope is the worst of it.
I hope the sun is shinning for you all.
See Ya, Rusty.