Inside an akoya

[waimeamomi]

I just broke a Vietnamese unbleached akoya pearl. This is part of my knotting project that I have been fighting with all day (on another thread). I tried to force a needle through and this is what I got. Very interesting. Not much in the way of nacre and above the round insert and the baroque top it was empty. Is this normal? There are a couple of others from the strand in the shot too. Argghh. Why am I pending again? I'm going to put them in my album, if anyone is interested.

 

[pearlescence]

As Caitlin would say - pearl plated bead.
I've seen these voids too, in other bead nuked sea pearls.
I've had pearls break too, both akoya and freshwater - they make good hand-arounds when you are giving a talk on pearls,

 

[Mervione]

Seeing how little nacre there is on pearls that are beadnucleated does indeed sort of put you off them...

I might adopt the term "pearl plated bead", they just don?t seem like pearls to me anymore. Sigh.

 

[jshepherd]

I have to say, looking at the quality of just a couple of those pearls, I would have a hard time calling them pearls too. They are really, really poor. There are concentrations of nacre in different areas around the pearls, and then nearly no nacre in other areas. Not like 'gouges' in the nacre, but entire sides that received almost no deposition (see left picture second from bottom and nacre-free side of broken pearl). The pearls will not last most than a month or two of wear.

Maybe things are different in Vietnam, but in any other akoya-producing countries those pearls would be considered unfit for export and sold locally (if China) for $1-$2 per strand.

 

[Mervione]

What? They looked quite shiny and nice to me... Surprised by how much of the quality of the pearl that lies in the nacre thickness... Akoyas does seem trickier to buy confidently than freshwaters!

 

[maryd]

This is why I shy away from the Akoya. I am not knowledgeable enough to gauge the nacre thicknes. At least with freshwater I know what I am getting to a point. These pictures just reaffirmed to me I have a lot to learn before shopping for bead nucleated pearls.
Thanks for sharing.

 

[jshepherd]

The nacre on the pearls is blue-grey. You can see the concentrations in spots. In other spots you can see completely through the nacre. The broken pearls shows what I am referring to. There is a clump of nacre on one side and no discernible nacre on the other. It might be usuable if the nacre were thin on one side and very thick on the other or half of the other side, but it simply appears to be in random clumps. The third pearl up looks like it might be acceptable but it is difficult to see...

 

[KAC]

I guess the Vietnamese are in a little bit of a hurry to get into the market and need to keep those babys down for a longer soak - although it is strange how uneven the nacre deposits are too, what would cause that?

 

[waimeamomi]

Hmmm. All interesting. These came from someone reliable, I wasn't super impressed, especially after getting the PP silver Akoyas, although these were much less. I really got them to make earrings for the PP's and mix them up with other things, but someone fell in love with them. I will say that these pictures were taken at night under a work light in a great hurry, so I'm not sure how accurately the depict anything except the broken pearl. The angle is funny on the pics of those, so there are no "bald" spots on the pearls that I see, but I've never worked with Akoyas before either. I'm putting them in a bracelet, so I hope I'm not just rationalizing here. I wish I could post more pics, maybe later.

 

[jshepherd]

Do you have pictures of the rest of the pearls? Maybe there were just a couple of bad ones...

 

[laurenb]

Don't know if waimeamomi would be comfortable telling us roughly how much those cost, but I've been experimenting with similar akoya that run less than $10 a strand, even with EMS.

I think there's a really useful place for pearls like these in the market, under the "bought a shirt at Target" rationale: they're pretty, I don't have to worry about ruining them and I don't expect them to last forever. Handy for hot, sunny Texas days when sunscreen coats everything I touch, and they don't need to be taken off before I head into a smoky bar. If "pearl care guidelines" are to be believed, Freshwaters wouldn't maintain their beauty under these conditions very well either.

 

[waimeamomi]

Here are some pics in better light and the finished bracelet. Almost everything about this project tried to go south, we'll see what the next couple of weeks do.

Oh, I'm pending again. I'm going to post these on the knotting thread where I was venting. Maybe those will post.

 

[waimeamomi]

The pictures were gladly and readily accepted on the thread about knotting.

 

[ShashiRatna]

Jeremy,

Is that "skin" like thing which is peeling away from the white part of the broken pearl the nacre? Then what's the white part?

Cheers,
ShashiRatna

 

[jerin]

Jeremy,

Is that "skin" like thing which is peeling away from the white part of the broken pearl the nacre? Then what's the white part?

Cheers,
ShashiRatna

The white thing is the nucleus, shaped from a mussel shell.

 

[ShashiRatna]

Wow!! I didn't think the nucleus would be that big. Makes sense now - the nacre is only a few mm thick.

Thanks.
ShashiRatna

 

[pattye]

------the nacre is only a few mm thick.

-----------------or less----------------the following quote from our forum general information on Hanadama Pearls-------------

How Hanadama Pearls Are Graded And Selected

The grading is not subjective, and must meet the following criteria:

* The nacre depth must not show to be less than .40 mm on any randomly tested pearl

Of course, that is a minimum----but food for thought, since that is one of the qualifications for top of the line Akoya!