Recent content by Elenayak

And I forgot to mention that gold and diamonds also turned out to be real.

an update and a question an update and a question Thank you very much to everyone for advise on pearls purchased from "Dranix", it was very helpful. Just as an update, we had one of the 2 strands looked at GIA before receiving an opinion from Jeremy. The report came back in January(it took a...

Would anyone know if there are duties and taxes to be paid in US if a jewellery item containing pearls is shipped from another country? (Value over 2K). My friend would like to send something to me from Australia but I am concerned about expenses. Thank you for any info.

Actually white pearl studs are part of uniform of Porter airline (Canadian, reportedly the best small airline in North America). The flight attendants have to wear white pearl studs if they have pierced ears. Size is optional.

For top quality I would recommend the Pearl Source, they simply appear to have a larger inventory in top quality category. AAAA may not be better than AAA from other sources, but in my experience, and I was shopping for top quality a lot lately on all websites, AAA is not readily available and...

OK, thank you! This advice was very helpful. I already contacted the lab on 5th avenue, here in New York. The unfortunate thing is that you have to wait 4-5 weeks for the report and the return policy is technically 30 days. They said that for pearls they have so many requests that it takes...

I will have to practice this type of photo or ask my friend to help. For now I enclose the vendor's picture, it does more justice to the pearls than my picture. Their photography skills are much superior and I was using a phone camera. In a normal day condition you do not see all these colors...

Thank you every one for your advice and suggestions. I will have them appraised and will post the results. It was a calculated risk on our part to order them from an unknown website but the site looked reasonably convincing, providing their factory and headoffice address, pictures of farming...

Thank you so much, Wendy. I just looked them up, it seems that they are located near my home address.

Do you know where one could get such appraisal? I know that here, in New York the system of appraisals is strange, it has conflict of interest build in. They get paid an X percent of appraised value. I do not think they use the lab, however.

No, I think it is important to find out if they are real. I am sure that I could return them if they are not what they suppose to be, particularly, I have an additional AmEx warranty on purchases. I would not pay almost 10 K for colored freshwater. ( even though they do look exactly as I wanted...

Yes, they supposed to be grown in Australia. The seller apparently called Dranix. They say on their website that they are very large company in China producing mostly freshwater pearls and purchasing high quality pearls as well. They also own jeweler store in Bangkok.

They apparently have 30 days warranty if pearls are damaged or not as pictured. I attached certificate that came with them and vendor's pictures. They do not seem to have many pits, although I have other strands that do not. The vendor stated that they are less than 3% in a strand. As for the...

Size is 9-10 mm, the color is sort of pink overall, but the pearls have some sort of golden-greenish hallow, which is shifting when pearls are turned. It is noticeable little bit on the lower left pearls on the picture. It all depends on the light. There is some variation of color between pearls...

OK, here may be better pictures. I found these once particularly difficult to photograph. They seem to behave not like my other Tahitian strands. Usually my pearls seem to be more grey-ish with less light, and light brings out more colors. With these once it is almost the reverse: in a darker...