Friday, October 28, 2016

London Pearl said it is the largest round necklace he has ever seen

London Pearl is looking for a buyer for what it claims is “probably” the largest round Tahiti necklace in the world.

The necklace’s pearls measure 18 – 20mm with good lustre. Pearls larger than 15 – 18mm are exceedingly rare and Daniel Vecht of London Pearl said it is the largest round necklace he has ever seen.

London Pearl said the necklace is a natural colour black Tahiti cultured pearl – with the pearls measuring 18 – 20mm. It believes it is the largest round necklace of its kind currently on the world market.

http://www.professionaljeweller.com/london-pearl-seeks-buyer-for-record-breaking-necklace/

Very popular with one particular oyster – the Pinctada maxima

As the helicopter touches down at Willie Creek just outside Broome, the turquoise waters are doing their level best to subsume the mangroves. A few hours later, there will just be the occasional pool amongst muddy flats, with the waterline a long way out.

By the standards of north-western Australia, Willie Creek is relatively close to civilisation. It is a land of ferocious red dirt and rocks that have changed so little in millions of years that they still have discernible dinosaur footprints in them.

One thing that does change, however, is the gigantic tides. And these are very popular with one particular oyster – the Pinctada maxima. The huge fluctuations wash in and wash out a fabulous banquet of plankton to filter-feed on. And the Indian Ocean here is about as clean as seawater gets. The Kimberley region is barely inhabited, and it’s far too rugged for crop farming, so there’s very little run-off or human interference.

It is the Pinctada maxima that lures in many of the humans who do make it up this way. "Each oyster is valued at AUS$10,000 [Dh27,800] over its lifetime," says Willie Creek’s guide as she opens one up to demonstrate what goes on inside.

These oysters are not for eating – although the adductor muscle is regarded as an aphrodisiac in China and can sell for up to $650 (Dh1,835) a kilogram. Their true value comes from what can be grown inside – the biggest and most valuable pearls in the world.

http://www.thenational.ae/arts-life/ultratravel/chasing-south-sea-pearls-in-broome-australia

Natural pearls are exceptionally rare

Pinctada maxima pearls are the ones branded internationally as South Sea Pearls, and about 80 per cent of the world’s Pinctada maximas are found off the Australian coast. Where other oysters can produce pearls up to about 8 millimetres in diameter – maybe 10mm at a push – in Australia this is the bare minimum benchmark. The pearling companies along the remote north-western coast have long plumped for quality over quantity. And that’s how the Willie Creek showroom ends up nonchalantly displaying a pearl necklace valued at $100,000 (Dh282,500).



It’s not just about size, though. Four other key characteristics come into play – colour (the whiter, the better); surface (fewer bobbles and markings); lustre (shiny is good); and roundness (if it rolls smoothly like a marble, then it’s a winner).


The guide produces what she calls a "whale pearl". It’s 18mm in diameter, and would be valued at between $30,000 and $40,000 (up to Dh113,000), but for a few surface imperfections and a slightly off-round shape. That takes the price tag down to a mere $8,000 (22,600).

The oyster shells get bigger as they grow older – some grow to dinner-plate size – and the bigger the shell, the bigger the pearl that is likely to grow in it.

Natural pearls are exceptionally rare – they’re found in every 10,000 to 100,000 shells depending on whom you ask – so the vast bulk of the world’s shell production is done by cultivation. This involves artificially inserting an irritant into the oyster’s gonad – Mississippi mussel shell is used at Willie Creek because it is five times more dense than Pinctada maxima shell and thus shows up under X-ray.

The oyster then tries to soothe the irritation by producing nacre – better known as mother-of-pearl. It’s not too dissimilar a process to the way humans produce tears to fight irritants in the eye, but the nacre builds and solidifies over time around the irritant.

Here again, the tides come into play. They repeatedly flip the oyster shells, meaning the build-up of nacre is consistent on all sides to give it a more spherical shape. But it’s a two-year process, and the first pearls produced by the younger oysters are at the smaller end of the scale.

http://www.thenational.ae/arts-life/ultratravel/chasing-south-sea-pearls-in-broome-australia