[siggy]

Again, thank you all for your replies.

jshepherd, i am no pearl expert, - but i do know the basics though... As you have all stated out, the fresh water pearls are a smooth way to get into the business. I think you all know what you are talking about. I do love a challenge though so ill bring back a mix of both FWP and SSP.

Now here is something that migth solve my problem - and put your skills at a test too. I could post some pictures of the pearls i wish to buy and let you see whats hot, and whats not. Anyone in for it?

I get your point, Zeide. The $3500 earrings you were referring to in your first post was more like AAA-SSP, rigth?

Hehe i would love to take the Transsiberian Railroad. Reminds me of a trip i took with a rented motorcycle from Bangkok (Thailand) to Phnom pehh in Cambodia, when i lived a year in Thailand. Crazy stuff. It took me days to get there. Have anyone here been on the Transsiberian Railroad before? Id like to hear some experiences from it.

[pearltime]

Originally Posted by Zeide Erskine

Hi Pearltime,

What reservations could your husband possibly have against you taking a vacation with a bunch of Thor Heryerdals and Thorstein Raabis? Or maybe a selection of younger Brad Pitts?

Zeide

I know! Silly,isn't he?

[siggy]

hehehe, sounds like hell of a trip!

Where are you from Zeide?

[arielbada]

Hello Siggy,

My name is Ariel, I am a filipino and I have just started a jewelry business in the Philippines last year. I am currently in Paris on a three-month stint for my company.

It is my first time also to post a message here. I was browsing the internet for pearl information since I am thinking of exporting pearls from the Philippines. Although I am new in the business, my wife is not. She is the manager of our jewelry shop in the Philippines but she has been in the business for the past ten years.

I have been doing a lot of research on the Philippine South Sea Pearls these past months. I have discovered that in Europe there is a great demand for South Sea Pearls most specially for the ones coming from the Philippines which produces the best pearls in the world. It is not by chance only that the Philippines is called the Pearl of the Orient.

My wife and I are in good contact with the pearl suppliers in the Philippines. We do not sell pearls in our jewelry shop, only silver and gold, because filipinos appreciate pearls but they rarely buy them. I intend to establish future buyers in Europe.

If you are a foreigner, it will be very difficult for you to buy good quality pearls at wholesale prices in the Philippines particularly from the pearl markets. Worse if you go to directly to pearl farms because only a handful can go there directly.

I and my wife can perhaps provide you with the help you need. I would be back in the Philippines at the end of May.

If you want to know more, you can contact me thru my YM handle. I am almost always online these days. My yahoo messenger handle is arielbada.

Regards,
Ariel

Originally Posted by siggy

Hello everybody!

As this is my first post, please allow me to introduce myself. I am a young man from Norway named Sigurd. I am in the middle of starting a new import company and in this occation i have researched the Norwegean market and found that Norway (one of the most expensive countries in the world) are in lack of good pearl importers. It has therefore been decided that pearl import will function as the backbone of the company.

The 31'st this month (31.03.06) two of my partners and myself are traveling to Manilla. As a start we are going to evaluate the market by investing around $3500 on pearls.

Allthoug one of my partners have lived in Manlilla for about a year, I feel that what we need is a friendly person, native or not, who speaks the native language and have a decent knowlege of the pearl market in the Philippines. I hope anyone on this forum that lives in the Philippines are interested in helping us!

Im sorry but i cannot promise great sums of money for this, frankly because we need to live very low budget down there. What i can promise you on the other hand is a good meal and a fair amount rounds of beer on our expence.

Any replies are most welcome!

Siggy

[fifagio]

Hello everybody!


This is an interesting website, very informative and clear at the same time! Together with the threads, one of the best I've found to provide good information about pearls. Thanks.

As this is my first post, let me introduce myself. Coming from Belgium, I live in the Philippines for half a year now.

After having visited Greenhills Pearl Market (Manila) like so many tourists, I became interested in pearls and pearl farms in the Philippines. I found a lot of information on this site. (And I can say now: Luckily, I didn't buy much in Greenhills during these first visits).

At the moment, I am looking for some smaller-size good quality South Sea Pearls from the Philippines on request of some local jewelers in Belgium. Can someone give me good references?

Thanks,
F

PS: At Greenhills, except from the cheap Chinese freshwater pearls, all shops also sell necklaces from 8-9-10mm pearls, fairly round and with hardly any blemishes, white, pink, abricot or dark purple coloured, not dyed (price 3000-4000 pesos,60-80USD). They call them "Baby South Sea" pearls from the south of the Philippines (Mindanao).
Are these really South Sea pearls, or do we speak about cultivated freshwater Pearls -if so, are freshwater pearls also cultivated in Mindanao??

Is someone familiar with these kind of pearls, and with the Greenhills pearl market in general (where 15mm pearls are also offered, 10,000-25,000USD for a necklace)? Is it possible to do a good deal there when you watch out?

[Zeide Erskine]

Basically all these "baby South Sea" pearls are freshwater cultured and typically from China not from the Philippines.


Zeide

[jshepherd]

South Sea pearls are native to Mindanao, not freshwater.

The pearls you saw at the market were certainly Chinese freshwater. The colors described are classic Chinese freshwater colors; white, peach, and lavender.

This type of deception is not limitted to the Philippine pearl markets, similar selling happens in China as well. Nearly every seller I met when I first bought pearls at Hongqiao nearly a decade ago called plated clasps 10k. When I discovered the truth and confronted a supplier I learned it was "industry standard". They all knew it was not true, but they basically agreed to use the term 10k because buyers preferred it over plated.

[mandyshan]

hello ,siggy ,

i 'm from China after study your information noted you are looking for pearl products .It's really very nice that our hometown is specialized in making pearl products .Hope to contact with you and discuss each other how to make business .my mobile No. is 86-13065820117 .
or you can send eamil to me by sunnyue66@yahoo.com.cn
or my MSN mandyshan@hotmail.com
waiting for your response .


Mandy

Originally Posted by siggy

Hello everybody!

As this is my first post, please allow me to introduce myself. I am a young man from Norway named Sigurd. I am in the middle of starting a new import company and in this occation i have researched the Norwegean market and found that Norway (one of the most expensive countries in the world) are in lack of good pearl importers. It has therefore been decided that pearl import will function as the backbone of the company.

The 31'st this month (31.03.06) two of my partners and myself are traveling to Manilla. As a start we are going to evaluate the market by investing around $3500 on pearls.

Allthoug one of my partners have lived in Manlilla for about a year, I feel that what we need is a friendly person, native or not, who speaks the native language and have a decent knowlege of the pearl market in the Philippines. I hope anyone on this forum that lives in the Philippines are interested in helping us!

Im sorry but i cannot promise great sums of money for this, frankly because we need to live very low budget down there. What i can promise you on the other hand is a good meal and a fair amount rounds of beer on our expence.

Any replies are most welcome!

Siggy

[anapuigvert]

Dear Sir ,

We are a a spanish import company and we want to know wholesalers of pearls in Manila .
We area travelling next week to Manila .
Kind regrads
Ana Puigvert

[islandboy]

Originally Posted by siggy

Hello everybody!

As this is my first post, please allow me to introduce myself. I am a young man from Norway named Sigurd. I am in the middle of starting a new import company and in this occation i have researched the Norwegean market and found that Norway (one of the most expensive countries in the world) are in lack of good pearl importers. It has therefore been decided that pearl import will function as the backbone of the company.

The 31'st this month (31.03.06) two of my partners and myself are traveling to Manilla. As a start we are going to evaluate the market by investing around $3500 on pearls.

Allthoug one of my partners have lived in Manlilla for about a year, I feel that what we need is a friendly person, native or not, who speaks the native language and have a decent knowlege of the pearl market in the Philippines. I hope anyone on this forum that lives in the Philippines are interested in helping us!

Im sorry but i cannot promise great sums of money for this, frankly because we need to live very low budget down there. What i can promise you on the other hand is a good meal and a fair amount rounds of beer on our expence.

Any replies are most welcome!

Siggy

I'm an engineer who have worked extensively in development projects in the southern part of the philippines (davao, zamboanga and jolo). I have been back and forth to mindanao since 1992 and am currently doing 2 infrastructure development projects there. On one of my trips, I bought some fresh water pearl necklaces for my wife from the local traders. My wife told me that they are superior in quality than the ones sold in manila and that we could supply them to retailers who can discern and appreciate the difference. Personally, I know very little about pearls, which prompted me to do some background research, thus stumbling in this forum.

Unfortunately, there is an on-going war on terror down there. Even folks from manila would be averse to going to mindanao. I on the other hand, am obliged to go there from time to time. Maybe I could supply pearls to you and anyone interested at a more reasonable price than the obscenity being passed around in this forum. I'll post pictures of the necklaces I got next time.

[islandboy]

Originally Posted by fifagio

Hello everybody!


This is an interesting website, very informative and clear at the same time! Together with the threads, one of the best I've found to provide good information about pearls. Thanks.

As this is my first post, let me introduce myself. Coming from Belgium, I live in the Philippines for half a year now.

After having visited Greenhills Pearl Market (Manila) like so many tourists, I became interested in pearls and pearl farms in the Philippines. I found a lot of information on this site. (And I can say now: Luckily, I didn't buy much in Greenhills during these first visits).

At the moment, I am looking for some smaller-size good quality South Sea Pearls from the Philippines on request of some local jewelers in Belgium. Can someone give me good references?

Thanks,
F

PS: At Greenhills, except from the cheap Chinese freshwater pearls, all shops also sell necklaces from 8-9-10mm pearls, fairly round and with hardly any blemishes, white, pink, abricot or dark purple coloured, not dyed (price 3000-4000 pesos,60-80USD). They call them "Baby South Sea" pearls from the south of the Philippines (Mindanao).
Are these really South Sea pearls, or do we speak about cultivated freshwater Pearls -if so, are freshwater pearls also cultivated in Mindanao??

Is someone familiar with these kind of pearls, and with the Greenhills pearl market in general (where 15mm pearls are also offered, 10,000-25,000USD for a necklace)? Is it possible to do a good deal there when you watch out?

Hi.

I'd be happy to supply you fresh water or south sea pearls from jolo, sulu or the zamboanga penisula. I go there from time to time although I can't say I'm an expert in pearls. Give me a pm if you're interested.

[jshepherd]

The problem with those freshwater pearls is that they do not come from where you are buying them. They originate in China, and are then exported to the Philippines where they are sold as local pearls. But they are not Philippine pearls and the traders are basically lying to the buyers (unfortunately).

[islandboy]

Originally Posted by jshepherd

The problem with those freshwater pearls is that they do not come from where you are buying them. They originate in China, and are then exported to the Philippines where they are sold as local pearls. But they are not Philippine pearls and the traders are basically lying to the buyers (unfortunately).

Even the south sea pearls?

I have personally worked on us-aid funded, infrastructure projects for the badjao community in zamboanga and have spoken with some of them. Apparently, they still dive for pearls there.

I'm curious. How do you distinguish from fresh water and south sea pearls? How do you know there aren't fresh water pearls in the philippines. I'd appreciate if you'd enlighten me.

[Caitlin]

Hi Island boy
The Philippines are an important source for south sea pearls. I read somewhere that the badjao still dive and some work for Jewelmer, a huge vertical business that covers the entire process of growing and selling pearls all the way to retail jewelry. They are not cheap pearls.

How do you distinguish from fresh water and south sea pearls?

South sea pearls are cultured with a bead nucleus; freshwater pearls are solid nacre so they rarely have the perfect round shape.

Freshwater pearls grow in mussels that live in fresh water. There are freshwater mussels in every happy creek and river, but there is no business which is growing them in the Philippines, yet. The Chinese produce so many at such decent prices, there is no financial incentive. One might be able to find wild grown pearls in the local mussels, but I think it takes hundreds of mussels being removed from their habitat to find ONE pearl. Maybe it is one in a thousand.

We have the same problem in America where there are more species of mussels than anywhere else, but cultivating them for pearls is hard, expensive, work. There is one company that is/was growing cultured freshwater pearls in the USA, but they are a small outfit.

[jshepherd]

Originally Posted by islandboy

Even the south sea pearls?
I have personally worked on us-aid funded, infrastructure projects for the badjao community in zamboanga and have spoken with some of them. Apparently, they still dive for pearls there.
I'm curious. How do you distinguish from fresh water and south sea pearls? How do you know there aren't fresh water pearls in the philippines. I'd appreciate if you'd enlighten me.

The South Sea pearls are from the Philippines, indeed. It is an important producer of South Sea pearls, in particular golden pearls.

As for the pearl diving, the only pearl diving on that side of the world would be meat/shell collection with the rare discovery of a single pearl as a chance occurrence, or work being performed on a South Sea pearl farm. The ancient art of "pearl diving" there never really was about the pearls, it was about the mother of pearl (the shell). Unfortunately, any of the stories you heard were just that - stories.

Caitlin is right about the freshwater pearls and China's production. There really is no other producer of freshwaters in the world. Sure, small operations here and there with production so low a single matching necklace is a challenge (think Kasumi in Japan), but you are not going to "happen" upon these. Anything purchased freshwater is going to be Chinese today, and guaranteed to be such if purchased in the Philippines or anywhere else in that part of the world.

Distinguishing between freshwater and South Sea is not difficult, in fact most people here can do so by a poor photograph. One way for a novice to tell in the Philippines would be size, shape, and price. If the pearls are small, in any way potato shape, or in a necklace yet under $1000 US (price for a low quality South Sea strand), they are Chinese freshwater. This is an unfortunate reality of the Philippines, and several people have come here to this forum after purchasing freshwater pearls, portrayed as local SSP from the Philippines, but so far each has heard the same bad news.

There was even a website created once by someone who bought "local" pearls in Thailand. Thailand has the same issue as the Philippines. So sure was this buyer of these pearls from Thailand that he created thaipearl.7p.com. The opening paragraph talks about buying pearls from a "farm" in Thailand. Unfortunately he is selling Chinese freshwater pearls and was tricked.

South Sea pearls are the industry's most expensive type of cultured pearl, with the golden variety leading the value. Production is always below demand, and harvests command a lot of money. The farms do not sell a few pearls here or there, they sell at international auctions or to large wholesalers. It is done on a multi-million dollar scale. This is why you do not see wholesalers all around the Philippines, and you will never see South Sea pearl peddlers unless they are selling indicator-type pearls or pearls that the producer could not sell (those they disposed of).