Pearl Information
                              from The Pearl Market

Pearl Qualities and Values

This guide will help you discover the characteristics of these natural gems.

Buying pearls can be confusing - there are many myths, misconceptions and misleading pieces of information (see Abuses of the Grading System below). One thing is certain. The romantic image of the pearl fisherman diving off the side of a small boat to harvest pearls from the ocean floor is gone. Wild pearls still exist but are difficult to find. Nowadays, pearls are cultivated in freshwater lakes and rivers or seawater rafts.

Surface Quality refers to the type and amount of blemish on a pearl. Most natural pearls have blemishes which separate them from imitation pearls.Unacceptable blemishes include holes or cracks in the surface, and flaking nacre. The cleaner the pearl, the higher it's value.

* Pearls are a natural product and (like hand-blown glassware) small imperfections are quite acceptable - even desirable. Perfectly round, perfectly clean, high lustre pearls are rare - accounting for only a tiny percentage of the millions harvested each year.

** Round does not mean spherical like a marble but the pearls should not be obviously oval or flattened when viewed with the naked eye.

Grading Pearls
Grading (eg. A, AA, AAA) takes into account size, shape, lustre, surface quality, nacre thickness, colour, and matching on the strand. There is no international standard for grading and identical pearls may be graded differently by different suppliers.

To complicate matters further, not all the criteria apply to all the pearls on a strand. For example, even on an AAA grade strand, some pearls may exhibit small blemishes, others will be clean. Grading takes into account both the degree of blemish and the proportion of pearls with blemishes on a strand.

Abuses of the Grading System
Although there is no universal standard for grading pearls most reputable retailers and wholesalers adopt the A, AA, AAA system. (Tahitian pearls have a different system).

Unfortunately even this sytem can be misleading if a seller uses a term like AAA to describe pearls which do not meet the generally accepted quality criteria for that term. Some use terms not in the grading system like AAAA or AAA+ as a way of charging extra or pretending the pearls are superior.

'Investment Grade' is a misleading term. Pearls are a wonderful natural gem but they are not an investment and will not appreciate in value.

The term 'Japanese Akoya Pearls' has been abandoned by most professional pearlers. Japan is the world's largest importer of Chinese Akoya pearls where they are processed and re-exported with a 'Made in Japan' label. A 'Japanese Akoya Pearl Necklace' will almost certainly contain a high proportion of Chinese Akoya pearls. There's nothing wrong with this - pearl quality is judged on the grading factors above, not on where they come from - unless the seller is trying to extract a premium for the 'Made in Japan' label.

The Blue Tag (The Japanese Pearl Exporter's Association Inspection Tag) is sometimes used to denote quality. In fact the JPEA is a voluntary organisation which examines pearls from any country and passes them on the basis that they meet a minimum market standard. A blue tag does not mean that the pearls were cultured in Japan nor does it mean they are top grade or any better than pearls without a tag.

Harvesting
To achieve a satisfactory thickness of nacre, seawater pearls are harvested after two to three years. Because freshwater pearls are not nucleated with a shell bead they need nearly twice as long to reach the same size.

Colour Matching
Pearls can be dyed, bleached or irradiated to achieve a uniform or unusual colour. There's nothing wrong with this, it doesn't harm the pearl. On a necklace of naturally coloured pearls expect small differences in shading along the strand.

Freshwater Pearls
Have a small piece of mantle tissue (nacre producing tissue from another mussel) inserted to stimulate nacre secretion. This tissue desicates leaving solid pearl. Nacre thickness is not an issue with this type of pearl.

Imitation Pearls
Go by many names. Simulated, organic, faux and semi-cultured are sometimes used. Good imitations are made from beads of glass, ceramic or shell and coated with a varnish of laquer and ground fish scales to mimic the pearl surface.

Good imitations are quite hard to spot. One way is the 'tooth test'. Gently rub the pearl under the cutting edge of your top front teeth. Don't bite it. A real pearl should feel slightly gritty due to it's crystaline structure. An imitation pearl will feel smooth. However, this is not an infallible test.