Hi Caitlin, Thanks for your reply. Baby South Sea are mostly offered by Chinese sellers on E-bay. But what I meant is that when one goes to the Greenhils pearl market section, sellers want to make buyers believe that the fresh water pearls sold there come from the Philippines and that is a fairy tale.
Some sellers have a good selection of South Sea Pearls and want to make buyers believe that they all come from Zamboanga area in Mindanao, even the black South Sea pearls. Also this is not true as I can not get confirmation that there is even one pearl farm in that area. The Badjao people in that area, who in the past were diving for Pinctada Maxima oysters are probably not doing so any longer. So the mystery that the Muslim ladies on that market still telling customers that Fresh Water and also South Sea and Tahiti pearls in their shops are from Mindanao, is not true.
Around 6 pearlfarms are still operating in the Philippines and all of them operating in the Palawan area of which Jewelmer is the most known. In Indonesia there a lot more pearl farms operating from Lombok island eastwards including the Molucca's, Banda, Kei islands to even Papua New Guinea. It musthave been the Gerdau company in the past which also in Jolo was active in buying Pinctada Maxima Mother of Pearl shells which the Badjao's collected from the sea.