[want_to_buy_pearl]

Dear all!
I'm realy want to buy a set of pearl (1 strand+ bracelet+earrings) for myself. I found many pretty ones with low price in Ebay and decided to bid. But I found this website and hesitate to buy from Ebay. Any recommended seller? Or any other online store?

Waiting for your reply!

I'm in Thailand and many store doesn't ship to my place, if you know store that ship worldwide let me know!!!
Anyone know about pearls from Phuket, Thailand? Is it good?

[jerin]

Originally Posted by want_to_buy_pearl

Dear all!
I'm realy want to buy a set of pearl (1 strand+ bracelet+earrings) for myself. I found many pretty ones with low price in Ebay and decided to bid. But I found this website and hesitate to buy from Ebay. Any recommended seller? Or any other online store?

Waiting for your reply!

I'm in Thailand and many store doesn't ship to my place, if you know store that ship worldwide let me know!!!
Anyone know about pearls from Phuket, Thailand? Is it good?

Keep away from Ebay with regard to buying pearls!
On this forum you can find several of the members sellin good pearl quality at very decent prices online! Just look trough the different columns and you will have no more problems.

Jerin

[Satine De La Courcel]

There are several posts about this. I would NOT recomend it no matter how good the deal appears to be! Keep in mind If the deal seems to good to be true........

[Kevin Canning]

its true, most reports about Ebay seem to center around the negative so the likely hood of getting ripped off is pretty high.

That being said most online retailers won't ship to Thailand, so you might be forced to deal with an ebay seller. Just do a little hunting on ebay and come post the link here and we'd be happy to take a look and give our opinion.

[want_to_buy_pearl]

Thanks for all reply. Thank God I found this webboard before buy from Ebay

[carehret]

Hello,
I must reply! I actually sell full time on Ebay! I even shut my website down recently beacause I am SO busy. There are just a very FEW Good Reliable Sellers of Rare Pearls on Ebay. Please be CAREFUL! I do agree Most just Lie, Make things up etc. But I feel I fill a Niche. I offer True, Dependable Information & QUALITY Pearls from all over the Globe!
Thanks, Care

[Caitlin]

Care Ehret's store DRUZYDESIGN TREASURES can be found here.
http://stores.ebay.com/DRUZYDESIGN-TREASURES

I discovered her when I googled Sea of Cortez Pearls. At the time, she had a couple of strands. I got permission from her to post a picture of them which you can find here as originally posted: RE: Mexican Sur de Mar (South Sea) pearls

I know Sea of Cortez folks were using Pteria -and was it pinctada mazatlanica?, but at the time I did not know enough to ask the species from which these pearls came.... Love to get a pearl lesson, here.

Be sure to scroll down the above page for some fab pix from Doug of Sea of Cortez pearls.they look like the haliotis rounds from Frankboner! Don't you just LOVE that orient? The only thing better would be no bead......like the recent photos Doug put up of some spontaneous pearls. I am still dreaming about those......

[Zeide Erskine]

Hi Caitlin,

Doug's pearls look like pteria sterna to me since they have very deep and clear wild water and pinctada mazatlanica tends to look more velvety and subdued like untreated Tahitians. Pinctada mazatlanica also produces more lighter grey nacre although dark ones are not really all that rare.

And before you ask, wild water refers to aragonite layers that form in opposing directions so that the orient looks as if it were on the surface of the pearl. This is typical for textured pearls but some species usually produce wild water even in smooth rounds. In contrast, quiet water is the result of thick layers of aragonite crystals facing in the same direction. The resulting orient appears to be outside the pearl proper. Quiet water tends to give pearls an ephemeral glow or rainbow halo.

Zeide

[Caitlin]

Hi Zeide
Thanks
Now I am busy looking up all the references to orient in Strack. Nothing under "water" whther wild or quiet, so thanks.

Did you see Care's Cortez pearls?- I think they are from Doug too. They might be the mazatlanica as they are silvery?

[Zeide Erskine]

Hi Caitlin,

Since both species live in the Sea of Cortez and are equally amenable to culturing my guess is the silvery ones are mazatlanicas and the dark ones are the pterias. However, there are also darker mazatlanicas and lighter pterias. The nacre of pterias tends to have clearer water with more orient and the nacre of mazatlanicas hazier water with less orient. These are not hard and fast rules, though, you have to develop your eye for it.


Zeide

[Slraep]

Would water temperature have an effect on the density and direction
of the aragonite crystals?

Slraep

[Zeide Erskine]

Hi Slraep,

Yes and no. Water temperature has less effect than changes in light exposure and orientation of the protein folding in the conchiolin. If the protein folds one way in the summer and the other way in the winter, the aragonite crystal growth will change its orientation, too. So, while one cannot say that warmer water makes pearls grow one way and colder water the other, northern mussels will be more prone to wild water and southern more to quiet water. However, southern mussels have longer active and shorter dormant periods and thus more absolute conchiolin which makes for hazy to milky water and thus less orient all together. It is very much like tree rings. More food availability also tends to make for more conchiolin and thus hazier water. The most important factor, however, is surface texture. The more textured the surface, the wilder the water if it is clear. Hazy or milky water will always inhibit orient no matter what the surface texture looks like.

Zeide

[Slraep]

What about aragonite crystal density and direction in black versus white natural pearls?

Slraep

[Zeide Erskine]

Hi Slraep,

The crystal density is mostly a function of how much conchiolin is present to dilute it. The black color of naturally black pearls is the result of dark colored conchiolin and to a minor extent also to environmental minerals imbedded in the aragonite crystals. Tropical shells tend to have higher metabolic and growth rates with higher conchiolin content. That makes for less dense nacre with hazier water and thus less orient.

Later in their life cycles when the shells do not grow anymore, conchiolin production levels off even in tropical mussels. For perliculture that has little effect because only adolescent mussels are being nucleated and the pearls are not cultured for long enough for this to make a difference. Keshis growing after a second nucleation may be an exception but that practice seems to have been largely abandoned because it is not cost effective to tend old mussels for a low return on investment and the raft space is usually needed for new high-cash crops of nucleated rounds.

Zeide

[CortezPearls]

I was fascinated by Srlaep's questions and Zeide's answers...which eventually was all out of context from the original questions.

One thing that I think is important in Sea of Cortez Pearls is that these oysters live in a Sub-Tropical Sea... warm summers, cold winters. They have both a rapid nacre deposition (summer) and then a slow (hi-quality) nacre deposition in winter.

Another interesting factor affecting the Sea of Cortez's Pearl Orient is their tightly knit surface spirals (their "fingerprint")...more information can be found in G&G's "Cultured Pearls from the Gulf of California, Mexico" by Lore Kieffert.

Maybe someone should start a new thread on the subjects of Orient, Iridescence, wild/quiet water...it seems like a fascinating subject.

BTW, all of Carolyn Ehret's Sea of Cortez Pearls ARE from Pteria sterna...the few we've produced from Pinctada mazatlanica are more of a hobby to us. The color variation is always amazing.

Regards