
Originally Posted by
jshepherd
The most valuable pearls are always undrilled. Once a pearl has been drilled, it can only be used in a finite number of ways and with a certain type of jewelry or setting. If you had a super-valuable pearl that was accidentally drilled, it would destroy most of the value if it were to be sold as a single, fine pearl.
There was once a high-value strand of pearls in our vault that we had imported in for a client to view. It was only a mock up, which is how super-high value strands of Tahitians and South Sea are typically sent to us because they are hand-matched from loose, special pearls. I had matched a bunch of strands the week before and left them in the vault in the same area where the mock up was. Yuan, our in-house knotter and pearl driller, saw them and took it upon herself to drill all the strands. She accidentally drilled the mock up as well, thinking it was part of the lot I had matched.
That strand sold (thankfully). If it hadn't, we would have been on the hook for a strand of pearls that cost us around $50,000. Once we drill, we own the strand. There is no going back.