Pearls quality and value
THE VALUE OF CULTIVATED PEARLS
Technique of pearls
growing, as it is nowdays, is one hundred years old. For a long time Japan
(Akoja pearls) was the only world - wide pearl producer. As demand for pearls
has increased during last 30 years some other important centres for pearls
growing appeared such as : Tahiti ( where so called black pearls are grown ),
Australia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand ( pearls of the south seas ), China
(mostly freshwater pearls). There are some other places in the other parts of
the world where pearls are grown but it is not in considerable
quantities.
Grown pearls take an important part in world jewelry production.
Simply saying a significant amount of money is involved there. Very well known
GIA realized that, and they recently have made a system for category and
determination of values of grown pearls. My intention in this short story is to
state those factors which exert influence on the value itself. There are seven
of them. Recognizing combination of these features we can come to the price of
the concrete string or an individual pearl.
SIZE: Grown
pearls are measured in millimeters made round to 0.5 mm. If a string of pearls
is in question it is said that it is for eg. 7 - 7.5 mm. Larger pearls are more
valuable but the value relating to size depends on the type of pearls. Akoja
pearls are mostly form 2 to 9 mm in diameter, and Tahiti of 8 to 14 mm
considering that Akoja pearls of 9mm are very rare, and Tahiti pearls of the
same diameter frequent we can at once conclude that the Akoja pearls will be
more expensive if the other elements are comparable.
FORM: When we imagine a pearl it is a perfect ball - like
object of white colour and beautiful glow. But still nature is not so generous.
It is difficult to make a shell to produce such perfection, so the forms which
are very near the form of sphere are in demand. Tradition has also an influence
here. Form of a tear or a sphere if having regular proportions is also in
demand.
It is symmetry that matters with these pearls. So called baroque (
irregular ) forms are of less value but not less attractive for skillful jewelry
designers.
COLOUR : Talking about colours we have several things in mind. It is basic or dominant colour. Glistering colour or some of them and orient or glittering rainbow colours which can appear right under the surface. All the pearls have basic colour but they do not have to posses other characteristics. The price relating to colour is dictated by fashion trends, individual taste and also by rarity of the desired colour of a certain type.
LASTER : Laster is what makes difference between pearls from precious stones. Having a good laster a pearl is bright and radiant, you can simply look at yourself as in the mirror. With declining of this quality the price is falling down.
QUALITY OF THE SURFACE: As it is with the other precious stones quality of surface makes influence on the value. It is impossible to find ideal flat surface of a pearl but those which are near to that having also other desired characteristics can be very expensive.
QUALITY OF THE LAYER: made by shell around the nucleus. If this layer is thin or not uniform then laster is bad and long lasting of pearl is reduced.
MATCHING: Although this can not be applied to pearls used for rings, hangers - on or brooches, most of them go on to the market in the form of string. For necklace where very important is the factor of uniformity of all previous features. They say that sometimes years are needed to get a uniform string of Akoja pearls of extra quality.It is obvious that it must have its own price.
By this text we just touched this complex subject.It is known that some
strings of Tahiti black pearls are sold in the famous auction houses for 900,000
dollars,but at the department stores you can find pearls strings necklaces for
20 dollars.
The price of other pearls being between these two extremes will
depend on those seven factors.
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