Buying pearls was strictly governed by a complex system of bidding that all considered fair. In fact, pearls are traded in almost exactly the same way today, except that the traditionally furnished rooms of the past have given way to air-conditioned, modern offices. The Italian furniture is pushed aside and the traditional red cloth is spread atop the luxurious carpet, while the dealers discuss the merits of the pearls. Even the old system of silent bidding may be used: If a dealer does not want the others present to know how much he is offering for a pearl, he and the seller cover their clasped hands with a cloth and indicate their bids and counter-bids with a system of finger signals that dates back at least a thousand years.
From Bahrain, the pearls were sold to the leading Indian merchants, who sent them to Bombay to be drilled by hand. Finally, they were sold to the Europeans, whose hunger for pearls was insatiable.
Of Hajji Ibrahim Alfardan's nine sons five are still in what remains of the natural pearl trade today: Hassan and Ali in the United Arab Emirates, Hussain in Qatar and Khalil and Ahmed in Bahrain. They grew up during the great worldwide depression of the 1930's, made much more severe in the Gulf by the loss of traditional pearl markets to the more easily available cheaply produced Japanese cultured pearls. They learned the art of buying and selling sitting at their father's feet, where they also learned the necessity of hard work and the rewards of doing it well.
As Hussain Alfardan, now in his mid 50's, recalls: "We went through a very difficult period when the pearl trade came to an end. Some people had to sell their homes and others tried to find work in other fields. The whole area suffered terrible poverty for a time. While the discovery of oil in the Arabian Peninsula and Gulf waters heralded a great economic future for the Arabs, it took many years for the effect of the oil wealth to trickle down to the ordinary people of the Gulf."
They made a modest new beginning, that became the foundation of a jewelry, empire that now covers all of the southern Arabian Gulf, and places the Alfardan family on the level of Tiffany or Chaumet. But they are still best known for their fine pearls, whose prices, unfortunately, are now beyond the reach of most people. Fifteen years ago, a single-strand necklace of perfect pearls would have cost perhaps $8,000. In today's market the same necklace lace would cost around $100,000. Indeed at a recent Christie's auction in Geneva, a pearl necklace estimated before the sale at around 80,000 Swiss francs sold in fact for more than 400,000 francs - some $300,00 at current rates.
If pearls are so commercially valuable why don't divers go down with modern equipment and start to collect oysters again? It is not a simple matter. First, there is the question of territorial waters. Then Arab governments have banned scubadiving for pearls in order to prevent the pearling beds being stripped, but they are also unwilling to permit the hardship and exploitation the divers suffered in the "good old days" - and no one knows whether willing divers could be found today. The question of commercial viability is unanswered without actual experience of modern running costs. And finally there are the unknown effects on the pearling grounds of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, with its probable oil pollutior mines and other hazards.
Will the natural pearl have a future in the Arabian Gulf? Dr. Sami Abdulla Dannish of Bahrain is finding out. He is the head of a Bahraini government study project on oysters in Bahraini waters. His study is at present surveying the oyster beds, and will then go on to study the growth of oysters, their habitat and the effects of pollution and fouling agents in the Gulf waters. Based on the final results in three to five years from now, Dannish may then look into the feasibility of rearing spats artificially to repopulate oyster beds or create new ones, thus - it is hoped increasing the potential harvest of natural Gulf pearls.
Such scientific and economic studies are the key to the future, for however traditional the old pearling industry may be and however great the nostalgia that surrounds it, any effort to re-establish it must at least break even. Yet so little understood is the genesis of the pearl that even oyster beds full of oysters are no guarantee that the oysters will be full of pearls. For now the future of the natural Gulf pearl is uncertain at best - and so is the future of its few remaining fascinated servants.
|