Lapidary Journal Feature Article

[Zeide Erskine]

Hi Folks,

I think this is a highly topical article for this forum and deserves discussion:

http://www.lapidaryjournal.com/feature/pearls.cfm

Zeide

[Caitlin]

This is a very even-handed treatment of the subject- considered how high the passions ran here!

I noticed the article mentioned "The Pearl Society", so I Googled it. http://www.evejewelry.com/about/pearlsociety.html
and there is another page as well. What do you know about this pearl-loving group?

[Zeide Erskine]

Hi Caitlin,

I really do not know very much about the pearl society per se. It seems to me like the pearl guide forum for a fee with a junkmail option. But that's o.k., too. Maybe some members of this forum wish to contribute some poetry to bring us up to par with the literary side. We seem to be ahead on the academic score and recent rumors have it that some humor has been spotted on this very forum, too.

Zeide

[jshepherd]

Lop noors are red...
Abalone are blue...

Who wants to finish it?!

[Zeide Erskine]

...
I rhyme like a Vogon
and want junkmail, too.

In case you want to learn about Vogon poetry, please check here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogon_poetry

Zeide

[Satine De La Courcel]

No NO not Vogon Poetry AHHHHHHH Run Away Run Away!!!!!!

[Zeide Erskine]

Hi Ash,

I see you take your literary clues from Eric Idle. Are going to fight a prattle with cattle?

Zeide

[jshepherd]

On a serious note, are you reading this Amanda?

I am sure many of you have followed Freeman's marketing of freshwater pearls as tissue-activated not tissue nucleated. But one thing I noticed in this article is his use of PurePearl with the "registered" trademark. As far as I know it is something that he 'wanted' to register, but cannot. It is owned by our very own Amanda Raab or Pure Pearls.com. Shanxiahu also tried to register their Chinese PurePearl line last year but were unable to for the same reason.

I just think you should keep an eye on that, Amanda. Use of your mark with a TM or an R is actually illegal.

[Kevin Canning]

I just finished reading the article and thought the same thing, some how I doubt Amanda is going to let that slide.

On another note, was it just me or did many of arguments in the article seem very similar to what has been discussed here?

I do think that a universal grading system can be put in the place, with the understanding that it is not intended to be used to compare different types of pearls to each other.

[Caitlin]

Here is what I wrote about Marc Freeman in my review "2 weeks of pearls in AZ" : from Feb 2005

Marc Freeman of Freeman Pearl Company in LA had lots of incredibly beautiful FW pearl strands of outstanding luster, roundness and etc. I though they were Akoyas. I asked if they were shell nucleated, which he denied. He said he bought them in China himself. When asked further, he said he goes directly to farms. He said he does not speak the language much. He must be making a tidy profit at $90 a loose strand for 6-6.5mm.

He really did have the best FW pearls at the AGTA show.

Here is another article about him:
Are CFWCPs 'activated,' or 'nucleated'? The issue of tissue.
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1:133410451/Are+CFWCPs+activated,+or+nucleated%3F+The+issue+.h tml?refid=ency_topnm (http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1:133410451/Are+CFWCPs+activated,+or+nucleated%3F+The+issue+.h tml?refid=ency_topnm)
Marc Freeman says his round metallicluster 10 mm and 11 mm Chinese freshwater cultured pearls are 100 percent nacre. There's no nucleus. And he challenges the gem-identification laboratories that call Chinese cultured freshwaters "tissue nucleated" but describe Japanese and Chinese akoya saltwater bead-nucleated pearls--with less than 10 percent nacre--as "cultured."
Freeman, owner of Freeman Gem Co. in Los Angeles, has spent a lot of money, time, and effort providing proof that his pearls are top quality--all nacre (no nucleus), natural color (not dyed or bleached), and ...


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You have to join to read the rest of the article (joining is free for a week:mad: ).

It looks like he has a way with words, "Metallicluster" is great. I like "tissue activated"- it is closer to the actual process than tissue nucleated because you don't have to clarify that there is no tissue left in the nucleus. And he obviously sees the truth of CFWP, so I hope he doesn't have too much invested in using Amanda's name!

I love it that people here and there are reaching the same conclusion about solid nacre pearls.

Hi Zeide
Where can we see Tavernier in English?

[jshepherd]

You know Amanda won't let that slide! I just spoke with her about it, as a matter of fact.

Regarding grading, this was a post I made to the thread a year ago.


I think there are a lot of hurdles to a good grading system for pearls. The first, of course, is that it would have to vary from type of pearl. The value factors of a freshwater strand will differ from important value factors of a cultured South Sea or Tahitian strand for example.

Another very difficult hurdle is the education. I spend a lot of time in the jewelry district in Los Angeles as we outsource a lot of our stringing there. In my years of commuting to the city I have become friends with a lot of jewelers. One thing that stands out more than anything else is the lack of pearl knowledge in the jewelry profession. A lot of jewelers cannot even tell the difference between high quality freshwater pearl and an Akoya, or a small Tahitian and a dyed Akoya. Here is a test that I would be willing to bet very few jewelers would pass:
Take a dyed, 9mm Japanese akoya with green overtones to a jeweler. I would be willing to bet 9 out of 10 would grade it as a Tahitian pearl. A pearl professional, however, would never make such a simple mistake.

With all the factors making up a value system for pearls, I do not think a standardized grading system would work well for pearls, unless it grades each facet individually. Even this can cause problems, however, unless the appraiser has a grading board.
Why?

We have all examined pearls in poor light. What do we see? Beautiful, high luster pearls. This is an old Chinese trick. Even comparing the pearls against an actual high-luster strand is difficult without good natural sunlight.

Also, unless the grader is comparing a strand against another, it can be extremely difficult to grade the subtle differences in the luster. This is exactly why, although I have been traveling to Asia purchasing pearls for nearly 10 years now, I still carry sample strands every trip. I would never make a purchase without them.

If a standardized grading system does come into play - one that grades all value aspects of the pearl strand - a grading board with become an absolute necessity. I do not believe even 1% of retail jewelers in the USA would be able to grade pearls without it. The problem is this means having a board for cultured Akoya, freshwater, Tahitian, and South Sea. This would be a large board if we are only grading the rounds. If you factor in the other shapes it becomes an enormous challenge. When buying just Tahitian pearls, for example, the grading is as such:
Round - A, B, C, D (and many farms also incorporate AB, AB- BC, etc.)
Near Round - A, B, C, D
Off Round - A, B, C, D
Semi-Baroque - A, B, C, D
Baroque - A, B, C, D
Circled - A, B, C, D
And of course they always separate nice drops and pear shapes.
This is only based on the size, surface quality, and luster. This does not even factor in the color which is a huge end-consumer value factor.

The GIA currently has a class which teaches students to identify the value characteristics of a strand of pearls. But, this class is only 1 day long, and is an elective. Even if every GIA graduate was required to take the class I still do not believe they would universally be capable of grading pearls. Is the diamond grading class only a day? Or is it more like 3 months of classroom every day?!
__________________

[Satine De La Courcel]

I am sure amanda will NOT let it slide!!!! I read teh article twice! My Head hurts!!! holly cow. Maybe Vogon poetry would have been better!!

[Valeria101]

What I found surprising in the article is that identification of type and of treatment is considered a problem. Bogus? If so, what is the word of current lab reports worth?

Just wondering.


I am not a fan of such 'universal' grading system' as a concept, much like the article puts it in comparison with diamond grading. Certification of origin sounds a bit more natural - if anything I might be wondering why this idea never came up about pearls ('Paspaley' as exception? don't even know if truly their mark is always on own production, but it seems to imply so). Obviously, a pipe dream topic.

[Pearls_by_Angela_Carol]

What I found surprising in the article is that identification of type and of treatment is considered a problem. Bogus? If so, what is the word of current lab reports worth?

Just wondering.


I am not a fan of such 'universal' grading system' as a concept, much like the article puts it in comparison with diamond grading. Certification of origin sounds a bit more natural - if anything I might be wondering why this idea never came up about pearls ('Paspaley' as exception? don't even know if truly their mark is always on own production, but it seems to imply so). Obviously, a pipe dream topic.
The major problem that I have is the constant comparison to diamonds. We are really talking about two different things - pearls are organic, not a stone or gem (apples and oranges).

I have to ask, why are you not a fan of a universal grading system? Without some type of universal standard it opens the door for retailers to make up their own system (such as calling their highest quality pearls AAAA grade). This causes two issues. First, their highest grade may not be as high quality as someone elses. It may just be the highest grade they have been able to procure. Second, if the quality is equal then it implies to the customer that it is not - making them wonder why no one else is able to procure AAAA grade pearls.

In both cases this is misleading to the customer. I have actually had one pearl retailer tell me they simply made up their grading system to make it appear they had better pearls. They said they could do this and it was perfectly legal because there was no standard grading system and they were free to grade their pearls any way they wanted to.

Also, the "Certification of Origin" concept just would not be possible. Take for instance the Akoya pearls. When you have between 70% and 85% of the pearls cultured in China, imported by Japan, mixed in together with the pearls cultured in Japan and then sorted and graded, it is impossible to specify the origin of either a pearl or the strand.

[jshepherd]

In both cases this is misleading to the customer. I have actually had one pearl retailer tell me they simply made up their grading system to make it appear they had better pearls. They said they could do this and it was perfectly legal because there was no standard grading system and they were free to grade their pearls any way they wanted to.
One must assume you are speaking of PearlsOnly.com. Is that the retailer you are referring to? He actually told you he made it up to make them appear better?!?! It would not surprise me, and it is the only one that uses that AAAA grade.

[Valeria101]

The major problem that I have is the constant comparison to diamonds. ... I have to ask, why are you not a fan of a universal grading system?

Also, the "Certification of Origin" concept just would not be possible...



First of all, sorry for the long post... the summary: it looks like a universal grading system is a diamond thing and it would not fit pearls as well, or at all. IMO, it was a fluke of history that made the idiosyncrasies of standard certification match the diamond pipe line.

I wouldn't like to only find ten millimeter white pearls in shops, so... no universal grading, please... Since pearls are cultured, a centralized grading system would turn a normative thing.

[End of summary].



And the long form is:


Well, I am one of those buyers potentially duped by inconsistent in-store grading systems, so you are right to wonder why denying the clear benefits of standard grading. The ideal is great, of course. Unfortunately, I only have a small pool of implementation to draw on and that doesn't sound quite as great. This is where the comparison with the diamond grades comes from: I never meant to compare pearls and diamonds, only the institutional workings of the grading system - as GIA's potential pearl grading is the subject of the article cited and the prominent diamond standard is also one their prominent lines of business, the comparison seemed even more relevant.

Apparently, the grading plan does follow the obvious to take into account the characteristics of its object. However, I wonder how much of the corporate experience financing and promoting such a label will cross-over.

About the diamond grades, I happen to subscribe to THIS (http://www.ruby-sapphire.com/da-naked-eye.htm). Wouldn't it be a shame for the same to apply once to pearls?


Sorry for the round-about... There is a two word summary: information asymmetry. A grading system has to keep it in place to be economically viable (that funny article by Richard Hughes comes down to this, I believe). That is one part I do not feel so good about.

Also, it is quite accepted that any composite metrics have some typical biases: for once, they do promote uniformity (the article mentions that), but also, they tend to focus on extremes (the very bad and the very good categories are allot more reliable than anything in-between). Two mechanisms that don't agree with diversity very well: the first comes in the design phase and can be controlled. The other is just a fact of life that comes out of the use of ranking systems regardless of what they measure... diamonds, pearls, financial transactions, air pollution...

Perhaps none of this was a problem for the diamond industry with a relatively smaller number of sources and not much control of what comes out of the ground. Pearls don't seem much like that.

Why 'certificate of origin'. Because... pearls are cultivated. And product differentiation comes from the producer with a stronger argument than for any other precious stone. Clearly, that's a very inefficient idea for pearls that are pooled after harvest, but are they all? I was thinking of those that are not. Even a universal grading system would not favor all the crop. Neither would this.

The LJ article tells how centralized grading and the acknowledgement of origin did clash over product diversity anyway, with producers of various types of pearls concerned over the potential of uniform grading to enforce a uniform product rather than just uniform 'quality'.

Culture can adapt to a standard (even before the fact!). Extraction cannot. A pearl grading standard would likely be 'normative', in that way.

There's one more thing I was also trying to take in: the uniform grading can only be as reliable as the information accessible to the grader. The more difficult and controversial information acquisition 9or reporting) is, the worse... With mined precious stones, the characteristics of the material can be learned relatively easily and relatively once and for all by an independent agency. The finest is even volunteered... Keeping track of human intervention is the bigger challenge (say, keeping track of treatment by often uneasy communication across conflicting interests etc.). With pearls, the weight of human intervention seems orders of magnitude greater and the pressure on a grading agency to remain informed despite diverging interests that much worse! The only 'grading system' I know of that shifts the burden of proof where the information is for a cultured product, would be some sort of 'certificate of origin'... so that's where the unusual idea came from.

Oh well.. at least this is what crossed my mind while writing the previous post.

There's allot of 'what if', wishful thinking and inexperience, of course.

There could be an endless line of 'what ifs' ... Say, what happens with 'paper' online? For other precious stones it became more important, more expensive (relatively). Pearls' would not be the very first grading system to be made with the Net as a factor in mind, but nearly so. Pretty exciting, IMO.

[Zeide Erskine]

Hi Valeria,

I doubt there will be a uniform grading system anytime soon and the main reason is the Chinese freshwater product. Unless the other producers come up with a solid-nacre product, you have the enormous quality advantage of the cheapest product pitted against the Mystique machine of the most inferior product. On any kind of gemological quality standard (purity of material, lack of treatment) akoyas will drop out of the gem standard. The average nacre on akoya cultured PPBs would probably not even be close to the thickness of a slice of opal in a triplet cabochon. If you keep the Chinese cultured solid-nacre pearls in the same grading system as the PPBs, appraisers would be forced to apply values to Chinese freshwater cultured pearls that would entice about any living and breathing entity in China to try their hand at perliculture until the market cannot handle the flood anymore.

Zeide

[jshepherd]

Why 'certificate of origin'. Because... pearls are cultivated. And product differentiation comes from the producer with a stronger argument than for any other precious stone. Clearly, that's a very inefficient idea for pearls that are pooled after harvest, but are they all? I was thinking of those that are not. Even a universal grading system would not favor all the crop. Neither would this.

A certificate of origin would have no merit whatsoever (unless you are referring to the type of pearl). It would be impossible to police. Pearls go from farms to factories and wholesalers who cannot simply source from one farm or area. The Japanese have been buying Chinese Akoya since the 60's and selling them as Japanese Akoya (Strack, pg. 393) because the Chinese production was considered as good and even better than the Japanese. They once purchased Chinese freshwater and sold them as Biwa until their own production halted completely. Tahitian pearls are cultured in the Cook Islands, no one differentiates them. South Sea pearls that go through the trading houses of Hong Kong are only differentiated at auction. When they are composed into strands, Australian mixes with Indonesian and Indonesian with Philippine.

Made in Hong Kong, or Made in Japan really means nothing as this is not a certificate of origin - the pearls were not cultured there. Those little tags and claims of origin are simply a deception on the part of dishonest dealers who want to charge more than they should for the same product.

[Zeide Erskine]

Hi Jeremy,

So we finally agree that a cultured pearl is a cultured pearl and should be graded and differentiated by typical gemological criteria? Then where would that put your standard AAA akoya compared to a freshadama? In particular, how are appraisers supposed to treat them?

Zeide

[jshepherd]

They are a different type of pearl, and each type should be graded on its own merits.

I still feel that aesthetically a strand of AAA akoya is better than any freshwater pearl strand most consumers will ever see. Compare a top of the line freshadama with a AAA akoya, I would recommend choosing the freshwater. But, when we are comparing and grading, we compare and grade the same types of pearls against each other. Each has its own merit and market.

[Pearls_by_Angela_Carol]

Jeremy,

That is a good way of putting it. I think that I was trying to get there but just could not put the thoughts together on less than 2 cups of coffee :)

A good example might be the differences in AAA and AA+ (on the most accepted grading scale) in Akoya and Freshwater. In Akoya pearls, the AAA and the AA+ grades will both have excellent roundness. However, in Freshwater, while the AAA grade will have excellent roundness, the AA+ might be slightly off-round. This only speaks to one characteristic of the pearl though.

On our grading scale, we grade for Luster, Surface Quality, Nacre Thickness, Roundness and Matching (in the case of a complete strand). This gives an overall view of the pearl within its classification. I must also stress that this is "grading" not "appraising". In one of the previous posts these two actions crossed paths. While they are related, appraising also speaks to market conditions, consumer buying strength, economy, location...

Grading can be more quantitative. For instance, if the surface area of a pearl has less than 5% of it surface with inclusion, then it is an AAA grade is surface purity (not an AAA+ and not an AAAA grade). This does not speak to price, appraised value, worth... only grade. This is what is sorely lacking in the industry. Not an industry accepted grading system, but an industry indorsed grading system. Again, I stress this is independent of appraisal and value.

Yes, every system like this has it flaws and drawbacks. However, not having some type of accepted/endorsed system in place breeds a marketplace that is overrun with false claims and deception and ultimately cheats the consumer. Just imagine if there were no regulated system for measuring octane levels in gasoline. There are so many variables that "could" effect the reading that might be taken by some independent "gas appraiser" but without a regulated grading system, I could be selling you gas that was 84 octane and call it my "Super Ultra High Performance Octane Racing Fuel" and be perfectly within my rights if I also told you it was the highest grade we sold.

[mikehrz]

However, not having some type of accepted/endorsed system in place breeds a marketplace that is overrun with false claims and deception and ultimately cheats the consumer.Did someone say "eBay?"

I think I remember reading in this forum about the controversy surrounding eBay and diamonds, and how the bogus diamond sales were eventually pretty much killed off because of pressure from the diamond industry and, if I remember correctly, the standardized grading system that exists for diamonds.

I agree that each type of pearl would indeed need its own system. And grade should be kept distinct from value or appraising. As always, any product, regardless of objectively measured, quantifiable quality, is worth as much as the public at large is willing to pay for it.

Along those lines, though freshadama are, IMO, the best cultured pearls you can buy, they do face an enormous hurdle: the dominant position of the akoya and the mystiquery machine that's put it there. The simple fact is that hanadama akoya remain, for the foreseeable future, the standard for pearls as far as the public at large is concerned. This is why:

I still feel that aesthetically a strand of AAA akoya is better than any freshwater pearl strand most consumers will ever see.I have to agree. I was one of those consumers not too long ago. When I walked into the rodent-owned store in Las Vegas, their AAA exceeded everything I'd seen up to that point, and that was after I'd visited Pearl Paradise the first time. Freshadama simply didn't exist then, at least not in any form I was likely to have ever seen. For those average consumers who aren't aware of freshadama and want the most beautiful pearls they can get, I'm afraid akoya are still the way to go due to a lack of any other real option. It would be hard to walk into an average jewelry store and tell the customers that they should buy the chalky roundish things instead of the ball bearings that at least look like they're worth something. Those customers should have a standardized grading system to help them avoid getting ripped off, though. (I'm sure Zeide would edit that sentence to read "getting ripped off more than they are already.")

I have to admit, I'd still take a hanadama strand if you gave it to me. But there's no way in Hades I'd buy one, not any more.

One down, uncountable millions of yet-to-be-educated pearl consumers to go.

[Zeide Erskine]

Hi Mike,

As a regular reader of this forum you may recall that when I first tried to tell forum readers in general that gem quality freshwater pearls exist that even the sellers here would not believe me. Actually, that is how Pearl Paradise's Freshadama collection came to be in the first place.

Zeide