[jshepherd]

Day 4

A Day to sleep in – until 8:00 am. Pick up was scheduled for 9:00 am.

Raitu Galenon was our escort for the day, and our first stop was the Pearl Ministry. There we were able to see Tahitian pearls going through the government-mandated examines that every pearl is required to pass before export from French Polynesia. Large bags of recently harvested pearls were piled on one side of the Ministry's testing office. Each bag contained thousands of pearls separated by shape and grade. They were ready for export.

Interestingly, the lots that were awaiting examination when we arrived that day were marked with their assigned grades, but the grading was not standard Tahitian grading of A-D. Instead, the pearls were graded A-AAA, with intermediate grades of AA1 and A1. Raitu explained that this was the particular farm's grading scale, proving that even Tahitian farmers and traders sometimes use the A-AAA system preferred in the United States.

Prior to export all Tahitian pearls must pass through this office and be examined for two things. The first is an x-ray examination. A technician sits in front of a screen while a real-time x-ray is passed over trays of pearls. Each individual pearl is examined, and every pearl must have at least .8mm of nacre surrounding the nucleus to pass examination.




The second examination is of the the pearl's surface. We observed one man examining several hanks of circle pearls. The pearls must be free of excessive flaws (beyond D grade) and damage to be approved for export.

Pearls that do not pass one of the tests are separated from the lot, carefully itemized, and stored in a vault until they are to be destroyed. The pearls are then crushed.

In my experience, 2-3% of the pearls passing through this office are selected for destruction.



So I am smiling... do you see all the Tahitian pearls in front of me? Photo by Blaire (aka GemGeek)


The laws that regulate the quality of Tahitian pearls for export are in place to protect the consumer and the industry. Before minimum standards were adopted a lot of garbage poured into the market by way of thin-nacre pearls, and heavily blemished strands. But I do not think the laws are perfect yet, and I feel adjustments should be made.

Many of the pearls that we saw set aside for destruction were baroque. Some of them were incredibly beautiful as well. But because they were baroque the nuclei were not centered within the pearls. This meant that although one side of the pearl could have very thick nacre, another part of it may be too thin. These pearls are then destroyed. In my opinion this is a waste of very good pearls and was not likely considered when the law was enacted. This may be one reason we see so many beautiful baroque South Sea pearls in white and gold, but very few Tahitians. They are so beautiful, we are really missing out. That law needs to be examined for possible exceptions.

The next stop of the day was the Robert Wan pearl museum - billed as the world's only pearl museum. I should mention that this is not completely true as I have personally been to a pearl museum in Behai, China that was as equally impressive.



The staff was very gracious and took time to explain the exhibits and pieces on display. However, their explanations were very simple, completely non-technical, and in several instances wrong, unfortunately.


27.0 Baroque Tahitian Pearl

Some notable pearls in the Museum's collection included a 21.4 mm round and a 27.0 mm baroque Tahitian pearl. The most eye-catching piece to me was a curtain between exhibits composed of multiple strings of circle pearls, hundreds of them, hanging from the ceiling.


The Pearl Curtain

As the museum was the last stop of the tour, a few of us broke from the group to window shop Tahitian pearls in downtown Papeete.

In Tahiti one would expect to find deals on jewelry and loose pearls as nearly every boutique specializes in Tahitians, but that is not the case. Tahitian pearls are, for the most part, much more expensive in Tahiti than in the United States. Retail prices were in the range of 10 times what I typically pay for wholesale lots. I think I need to open a pearl store in Tahiti!