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Originally Posted by GemGeek  They said their color grading was done by artists, but I was an artist early in my career and despite having what I consider an excellent sensitivity to color, I disagreed several times with their assessment of the color and found it baffling.
Their classification of orient is very narrow. Using the samples of baroque freshwaters from the American Pearl Company, they said that orient is the kind of oil slick iridescence seen mostly in baroques and rarely in rounds: |
Yes, that was absolutely what I found. I'm an interior decorator by trade and I have to be 'colour attuned' but there wasn't a single Tahitian or South Sea sample where I agreed with its 'official' colour grade. That said, the tutor didn't agree with a couple of them either, and it was agreed that this is the most subjective area, so I decided not to worry about it too much. It was great to play with the pearls though!
I too was surprised at how apparently rare orient is by the GIA standard. Perhaps the term is widely misused. I have several strands at home which I am convinced have wonderful orient, but now I'm not sure what to make of them. Perhaps they just have a couple of nice 'overtones'. I'm going to photograph some pearls later in the week to ask for some opinions on this very point.