[ladykemma]

what was your most regrettable pearl related and moment and why?

When I was 20 i had a rich boyfriend. he gave me a pair of biwa pearl earring studs. He told me at the time they were expensive but I didn't understand what that meant. they were lovely and I wore them constantly for several years.

Then I got older and the earrings got lost in the house for years. I unearthed them during clutter clean out. I washed the yellowed gunk off from neglect and gave them to a friend.

Now I have learned a little about pearls and wish I had them back. It makes me slightly ill to think of what I threw away.

edited to say: they were keshi, not biwa. brain fart...

[Valeria101]

Lucky friend!

'Biwa' were just high quality freshwater... Perhaps the initial surce is gone, but surely the type must be allot more available now. And most likely allot less highly priced too. What were the studs like?

[ladykemma]

they were baroque lumpy round-ish. very very pretty.

[ladykemma]

i have another one...

dropping strand of pearls on the cold hard tile floor. Ouch!

[Cam Hatch]

I was helping a friend buy three loose Tahitians for his fiance for Christmas. One beautiful 15mm and a perfect pair of 11mm...fantastic colour and perfect lustre.
Unfortuantely she took them to her jeweller who does beautiful diamond work, but rather inexperienced in pearls...drilled straight through them all on an angle. Made me want to cry!

[ladykemma]

wow -did the jeweler have insurance? did he/she make good?

[Cam Hatch]

Unfortunately no insurance. Even when asking the jeweller "do you want me to mark the drill holes?" the reply was..."no, no problem"
The jewellery was finished with a slight design change to hide it, but maybe we can convince him to buy some white South Seas this Christmas!

[seadancer]

I was wearing my favourite pearl drop.....a lovely old akoya with beautiful orient......and the chain broke. I picked up the pearl drop and wrapped it in a tissue and put it in my pocket to return to my jewellery box when next in my bedroom.
You guessed it....forgot to return it and the tissue with pearl enclosed went into the trash on washing day! I didnt realise it until after the trash had been collected!
Cheers, Brenda

[Ragnorak]

My worst moment is loosing two black pearls between two international airports.

Both were about 12mm. One was a nice drop and the other a round. They both had a beautiful red/green overtone on top of the black.

[knotty panda]

It was time for my senior pictures and I wanted to wear a single strand of pearls like all the other girls wore. But, we were poor and there were no pearls to borrow.

So, I grabbed my babysitting money and marched up to the fabric store to purchase all the little packs of faux pearls I could afford. There were no beading stores then and clasps weren't readily available. Since I'd spent all my money on the pearls, I nixed the idea of a button clasp.

I strung the pearls to fit over my head with no clasp, but I didn't have quite enough pearls and had a two inch gap in the back where I knotted the thread. "That's ok," I said to myself, "that won't show in back!"

But, sure enough, when the proofs from my senior picture arrived, the necklace had shifted and the two inch thread gap was smack, dab in the front. The photographer hadn't bothered to say a word to me. I was mortified.

There was nothing to be done about it. And my senior picture was published with the thread gap.

I'm still mortified.