Michael
Thanks for your response. I was pleased to see a kilo price, but want to know what the ballpark kilo price would be for each grade? say 5-6 or 6-7mm, drilled. How stable is this price? When you used the word "Nucleated", did you mean with a rounded bead instead of a peice of mantle? Is it the same term for both bead and mantle?
OK some grading questions.
I bought some 4.5 size fw pearls for under $5 retail that are very round. They have a lot of banding and blemishes though, about 1 in 20 has some nice luster, 1 in 20 is duller. Would they be around a D grade or lower, if there is such a thing? The person in the store knew nothing.
Then I bought a strand of 6.5 off-round fw pearls in Tucson last week at a retail cost of under $20. I like them, because they have only very subtle banding on a very few beads. The luster is good on most and very pretty on some of them. I like the color on them -white with lively notes of pink and bluish green, they are so much prettier than the other strand. Only about 40% are round enough for my taste, the rest are too oval.
Among that 40%, none is perfectly round. They may have a little flattening on one side. One is shaped almost like a hershey kiss, many are a little narrower on one end. Each pearl in distinguishable from the others, which I love. If I had about 5 strands similar to this, I could probably top grade them and make a nice necklace.
I stopped by the store where I bought them (Strung Out On Beads) and asked Tracy, the manager, what grade they are. She said probably about a B grade and she will not have higher til the GEM and Mineral show comes to town in Feb. (I mentioned this forum to her and J Shepherd's name. She said, "Oh I know Jerry")
Would the individual pearls in an A grade strand be rounder, but still have enough character that you could tell many of them apart? I do like that better than perfect.
Also, please tell me about weight and fw pearls. Tracy said something about weight being important, but I had to go without pursuing it further.
Thanks for any answers.
Caitlin
Here is a picture. They look way more pink than in real life