Nova online: Pearls

[Caitlin]

Here's a link to a really excellent, brief but comprehensive, report on Chinese freshwater pearls by Fred Ward

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pearl/freshwater.html

There are also some other pearl articles linked to this one.

 

[purepearls]

I think he poses some excellent questions about the future market for pearls, especially for the Chinese versus Japanese pearl trends.

 

[PearlsAndJade.com]

What I'm concerned with is the probable increase in the value of the RMB in the coming months.

The first increase was only 2%, but the speculation on the street in Shanghai is that it will increase by 25%. If the price of the pearls don't go down due to high production, then the freshwater pearls are going to cost us 25% more.

While the cost differential to akoyas will still be a good spread, every percentage point can hurt.

Bill