It wasn't very nice of me to mention a product that's barely available (those larger FWP.). Clearly, there are not many and to be honest, other than placing an order with a couple of higher end shops, I wouldn't know where to dig such things out. By comparison, the 10mm-ish Freshdama give instant gratification!

Surely, south sea also come in a range of qualities and chances are everyone (myself included) would be very happy with the looks of better ones. I find it a tad tricky to navigate treatments and trust anything because of them, but even the worst paranoia can be cured by the seller's reputation after all, they'll always know more than I do... 'Bet I am not the only frustrated by the apparently endless wave of ugly (and at least sometime cheap) SS pearls looking like shell pearls or plastic... or anything but pearls. There's allot of that. Get to see ONE good stand (or some high quality freshwater)... and the experience would at least make the worst stand out. Still, there might be less of a 'hunt' involved than with the larger freshwater counterparts.

There might have been more talk about these larger pearls on this forum, but I have not read through it all. The topic sounds controversial a bit (if you can make any sense of THIS THREAD...)