Tiffany Pearl Description

[perla123]

I guess this question goes to the experts. I have been looking at the Tiffany Web-Site, and I was wondering what do they exactly mean with cultured pearls.
Aren't 99% of pearls cultured these days? How would someone who wants to buy pearls and is not an expert know if they are buying Chinese Akoyas, Japanese Akoyas or Freshwater Pearls. The only guess I would have is that there is no way that they could charge $4800 for Freshwater Pearls. But than again I wouldn't be sure about that either. After all it is Tiffany. I guess they might be able to charge whatever they want. This is an example. Just look at this page and tell me what you think.

http://www.tiffany.com/shopping/ite...J&start_id=46&CategoryId=66&category=Jewelry&

If you look on their site, you can see that this kind of explanation seen in the example is very consistent.

 

[jshepherd]

Actually it is a lot more than 99%. Probably 99.9999% of pearls sold today are cultured.
The description should read "cultured Akoya pearls", as the strand is Akoya. Tiffany does sell freshwater as well, but some companies refer to cultured Akoya as simply "cultured" and freshwater as "cultured freshwater".
Regarding the non-disclosure of origin, this is now standard because "Japanese Akoya" is no longer a valid term as Chinese and Japanese cultured Akoyas are indistibguishable and mixed. It is now impossible and dishonest to say a strand (unless it is a large strand of around 9mm) is "Japanese".