[jshepherd]

Someone recently sent me a link to an article talking about hanadama akoya pearls. It was a bit difficult to follow article as it was very poorly written, but the main point of it was to say that hanadama does not mean the best in akoya, and people who say it does are not being honest.

It is not worth my time to argue with every small dealer that has an ax to grind, so I am posting this link to the Mikimoto Web site instead. While I do not consider Mikimoto the best pearl information resource in the world (I mean come on, they claim Kokichi invented the process himself), they were the first to commercially farm and market akoya pearls.

http://www.mikimoto.com/uk/about_jew...rls/index.html

The first sentence is the only real pertinent part to my argument.

MIKIMOTO pearls are referred to as hanadama, or 'flower pearls', which denotes the highest quality pearls.

Hanadama has nothing to do with color. Hanadama only means the best. The Mikimoto company was the first to coin the term, they should know what it means.

[pandaexpress]

And if you're even thinking of getting Hanadama's from Jeremy or anyone else - do yourself the favor and check out his Freshdamas - they are the best freshwater pearls in the market today as many on this board can attest to and have many advantages over Hanadamas - such as being 100% nacre and having brilliant orient. And if you search through PG (not sure which thread started it) Jeremy actually compared Hanadama's to Freshdamas and most people on the board guessed wrong! With the quality of Freshdamas so high they are an excellent choice to consider. My two cents as a consumer who has seen both.

[Caitlin]

Here is the photo again.


(hint, the freshadama is the one with orient)