[pernula]

Originally Posted by Josh

I just wanted everyone to know that natural chocolate Tahitian pearls exist. The darker copper colors often do very good "imitations" of the "real" chocolates. Wow, that' a lot of quotes for one sentence.

I am a little confused. Copper means natural color and "real" chocolate means dyed chocolate or the other way round (copper means dyed..)? Is the choice of copper overtone in this pendant http://www.pearlparadise.com/detail.aspx?ID=123 natural or dyed?

How many percent of Tahitian pearls are naturally copper/brown/chocolate?

Thanks,
Pernula

[jshepherd]

The copper color is natural. I have made strands in the past that had a strong coppe/rbrown, almost chocolate coloration. But the color is not really the same and I have never made a perfectly matched, strong brown-color strand.

[silverseajewelry]

The natural brown tahitians that I have seen are copper, muddy brown that really is chocolate-colored, and bronze to almost gold. What is really neat is that the browns can be the body color and they can be any overtone on top of that. I have seen green and lilac overtones over brown.

It used to be that the brown colored Tahitians were considered lower value. I got a ring years ago for a song for this reason. I have always liked them. Wish I had a strand of natural brown ones!

[Josh]

Pernula,
It varies from island to island. For instance on Rangiroa atoll I have seen high numbers of them as I have in Huahine on my friend Ray's pearl farm there.
Strands of naturals will forever be difficult if not impossible to do though. As a color it's rare enough but if you have to get them all the same on dark to light scale you'll be in for a nightmare of a job.
Maybe the chocolate folly will increase the demand of the naturals and so drive the price higher. This farmer hopes so.

[pernula]

Hi Josh,

That's interesting the color range is different at different atolls. You have an explanation?

I hope the prices for beautiful naturals will go up for you and the other farmers. I kind of doubt whether the popularity of brown/chocolate is long term (>5 years into the future) though. IMHO red or blue is another story, human's fascination with ruby or sapphire or other gemstones in those color families never ends...

Cheers,
Pernula

[Josh]

I have always assumed the answer to that question lies in the different chemical make up of different lagoons. Even the biologists on the inside of the Tahitian pearl game don't know what gives pearls their colors exactly.

There are many reasons for the color variations within atholls Josh. They are both environmental and genetical. Many genetic studies were done in the 1990's on the populations of black-lips (a researcher by last name Menzies or Benzies was quite active) and he said that each atholl was actually harboring different sub-populations that could -eventually- become different sub-species of the Pinctada margaritifera.

He propossed a possible explanation for high black-lip mortalities in the 1980's: Genetic Pollution, due to the relocation of populations of oysters from one atholl to another.

[knotty panda]

Welp, that answers my question as to whether or not Josh could bring rainbow-lips to his house to play with his cuties and possibly increase his pearl base.

I am so tickled you two finally got to meet, share war stories, and be good buds. Would have loved to have been a fly on those walls.

Doug, welcome back! You have been missed. Glad you and your family are safe and sound.

Browns: Hmmmmm, so can brown Tahitians be differentiated between treated and untreated on sight by lack of overtone? Now that y'all mention it, I've never seen a chocolate with overtone unless it is a freshwater.

[Josh]

Hi Douglas and Knotty,
Yup, good to have Douglas back.
That makes sense about the different lagoons harboring different subspecies therefore explaining different color tendencies. Very cool. It doesn't make sense to me though that introducing a slightly different species would weaken a strain. I would expect the opposite, that it would strengthen it. I would expect the die offs to be due to the introduction of new diseases from the new occupants, no?
Knotty, I would expect someone like Jeremy to be able to answer your question about differentiating treated and untreated chocolate Tahitians. He has experience with both, me with just one.

[msLondon]

[quote=silverseajewelry;25762]. They are already out of style now, of course. QUOTE]

''fashions fade but style is eternal''
Yves Saint Laurent

[pearlescence]

We never got the chocolate mania here although I have sold some chocolate-ish black freshwaters

[Nerida]

Same here Wendy - the chocolate fad never made it to Australia, either.

[olmander]

It did not make it to the Low Countries either. I see occasionally brown Tahitians in the shopwindows but have never seen there chocolade FWs. Neither saw people wearing them.

Olga