Show us your very first pearls?

[JerseyPearl]

I love all the stories! BWeaves, that earring is stunning...I love the mounting!

[Pearl Dreams]

I love the story, BWeaves.

[BWeaves]

Tucs: My mother has earrings like that from the 1950s. Very retro.

[amti]

Paula, I never read your first pearls story, and gosh, those are some impressive first pearls!!! They are gorgeous and look great on you, even if it isn't your wedding day. I say wear the heck out of them!

BWeaves, what a touching story. I love that you wore your grandmother's pearls so often you had to get them replaced. That's a beautiful clasp and I'm sure everyone thinks grandma's pearls went to the right home. I just realized that I'm smiling as I type this.

[BWeaves]

Well, my grandmother did not buy the best pearls. Her akoyas had thin nacre to start with, I think.
But, she wore them continuously from the early 1960s until the late 1970s, and I wore them continuously from the late 1970s through 2015.
So that was 55 years of wear before I replaced them, and they really don't look that bad if you don't know what good pearls look like.

So, everyone who is afraid that akoyas won't last, believe me, they last plenty long.

[Katbran]

Love the stories! The pearls are lovely BWeaves .. after all they are Grammy's !

[Katalin]

Such a fun thread! We bought my first pearls 2012 in Aruba on a holiday.
The pearls were 8 mm and made by Honora. I know, not the best quality, but that time I didn't knew better!
The Picture is together with my baroque akoyas from PP, but I haven't found an other picture on my PC. Sorry!

[Katalin]

Ooohhh didn't know this thread existed until it got bumped by new posts! I have a funny story so I'll play: My very first pearl was a baby 13mm drop GSSP with diamond heart for my 18th birthday. It is the necklace on the right.

In Asia, we don't have Sweet 16; instead, 18 is the coming of age - the age when we can drive, drink and so on. 18 was also a special birthday for me because I'm a summer baby, so high school graduation fell in the same month, and I was moving from Taipei to the States for college.

My parents booked dinner at one of the best French restaurant for our family along with a few other close family & friends to celebrate. I was decked out in a new dress, and the pearl necklace. Half way through dinner, my parents said - "Paula, we can't be naive to think that you're not going to come across alcohol in college. You need to know how it feels like when you are about to cross the line, so, drink up!"... Yes, I have interesting/awesome parents.

So on that night, I got DRUNK on champagne, white wine, and incredible first growth Bordeaux Chateau Margaux and Chateau Latour. And when I say drunk, I had to be carried home and puked all over myself. Pearl survived, but the dress didn’t… And let me tell you – it worked. The number of times I got drunk in college? ONE time. And it was in a closed environment with trusted friends.

I don’t wear it nearly as much these days because of my other necklaces such as Victoria Grayson and Emily Thorne, but it is quite a milestone story in my life. Thank you for letting me share this story & pearl with you all!

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This was really hilarious! You have cool parents! I will do that with my daughter, once she gets 18!

[Camelotshadow]

This is a fun thread. I am loving all the stories, especially those including good French wine :-)

I haven't had a strand since about a year ago (don't worry, I have since made up for that!), but I have been wearing pearl earrings since I was a little girl (in Spain, where I am from, it is customary for little girls to have their ears pierced as newborns). I still own one pair and one loose earring (I lost the matching earring in school when I was in grade 5 or 6, as I would always fiddle with it; bad habit). I have had these earrings for over 30 years, but I seem to remember they were my grandmother's; they are quite old. Now that I think about it, I'm not even sure what kind of pearls they are. One of the pearls in the matched pair is severely damaged as you can see. I think the findings are gold and have a tiny diamond in them. The photos aren't great, it's difficult to get the iPhone camera to focus on the pearls.

PS: This style of finding (with variations) is very popular in Spain, and it is called "you and I". However, I have never seen it in North America. I'm curious, is this something old fashioned perhaps, or there just isn't a tradition for this style?

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Those are old earrings &I love that style. The single one they sort of call that a french lock. Its also used in olde russian earrings.

First earring I wish I bought as it was $150 but it looked like the space under the bar was very short.
2nd earrings are from the 30's & I borrowed & did a bal transfer to afford them but I wanted one great pair of earrings & that they are!

My first pearl was a strand given to me from my grandmother when I was born so it was 1960 or it was one she owned but it was not really much older than that. Not sure if it was the 14K 5mm strand my Mom gave me if a similar size 10k white graduated strand as mom did not really know which one was mine or I never knew which one my grandmother gave me.

I don;t have either of them anymore. The graduated broke & I put the pearls in a film cannister & somewhere in time they were lost. I think I sold the other strand as it was small & I was not fond of the color. Oh well so much for sentiment of the youth!

Wish grandma would have traveled to Bahrain but she had good jewelry. I remember her long large mikimoto & how good she looked wearing it at even age 90!

[rravi]

I got three sets of pearls from my mom. South Sea Pearls but she is not 100% sure. Are these all SSP. Please let me know as my knowledge of pearls are zero.

[pearl-man]

Not quite my first. Maybe a close 2nd.

1mm 12" and 1mm 10" sitting in a vault drawer from 1965

Norm

[BWeaves]

Wow, so tiny. Do you have any plans for them?

[Charlotta]

My first real pearls were a pair of akoya studs set in gold. I got them from my first boyfriends mother. I don't know why, that lady hated me. Probably because I am from sweden who met her precious son on a holiday in italy. Well it lasted some 6 months or so. Not easy to have a relationship alive at that distance when you are 17 and 18. I still have the earrings but I never wear them, for several reasons. That horrid Lady gave them to me, and I didn't like her (honestly she found a fault in every songle thing I did), so they remind me of her. They have an blueish overtone that don't match my other akoyas, not that I am all that matchy to start with...I am sure that they are/were quite pricey once. They also screw on the pins, take forever to put on or of. Yep worst patience ever, except for when I am creating stuff wierdly enough.

I wonder what did happens to that Lady, she couldn't have been all that happy. I haven't spoken to the family for over 30 years, they don't live next door exactly. After that I got a pearl ring some years after, but didn't know that you shouldn't wash it so one day the pearl were gone. I wanted a strand of pearls for the longest time. Noone in my family had any pearls, prefering gold. My father got my mother a majolica strand. Then one day I found vintage akoyas. New pearls are hideously expensive and of bad quality in sweden, generally speaking. For wome reason I hadn't thought about getting vintage ones. I first bought a double vintage strand with a citrine clasp and then a single stand of bigger akoyas with a ruby and pearl clasp. The single strand was very worn and I don't have those pearls anymore. But the double strand is remade into a wavestrand with some greenish golden south sea pearls.

I still have all my fancy clasps even though I have exchanged them for that nifty inexpensive clasp that makes the pearls more versatile. One day I might use them again.

I think that I have some vintage silver and marcasite clasps somewhere as well.

[86Corvettegirl]

Wow! I have really enjoyed reading all the wonderful stories. Unfortunately, I no longer have the first pearls I received from my parents...6mm Japanese Akoya. Since I have no daughters & wanted them to stay in the family, I gifted them to my brother's daughter on her 16th birthday. In the South, every lady should have pearls in her jewelry collection.