Sea of Cortez Pearl Farm

[jshepherd]

Hi all!

I figured it was about time to post some of the photos I took at the Sea of Cortez farm!


A view of the farm from the University.


You can see the Yaqui workers cleaning shell and collecting spat.


A shot of the farm from the shed.


...and a shot of the buoys from the boat.

 

[jshepherd]

Jesus is the number one guy on the farm. He makes $600 per month - a lot of money in Mexico!


The growth stages of the Pinctada mazatlanica.


A small spat, but pteria not pinctada.


An adult PM shell.

 

[jshepherd]

The nacre averages are very thick.


The orient on some of the pearls is unbelievable.

 

[jshepherd]

And finally, a few pearls I chose while visiting. My favorite is the sky-blue baroque.

 

[pattye]

Lovely scenery for viewing on a gloomy rainy afternoon! Those colors are amazing!

 

[Pearly Shell]

Great pictures! The thickness of the nacre is amazing!

 

[Caitlin]

I love the photo of Jesus. I noticed his very direct gaze when I met him, but didn't realize how handsome he is. My three Princes of Pearls, Douglas with the wonderful smile, Henrique, the smoldering toreador, and Manuel the quiet, are all so handsome too. It must be something about the pearls.......

 

[lisa c]

Down, Girl!

 

[GemGeek]

After we took the first picture, Jesus rolled up his knit cap to reveal his hat with the name of his favorite soccer team: Chivas. Go Chivas!

 

[GemGeek]

Caitlin is right, they were all very good-looking men. Heck, the women weren't bad either. I mostly had eyes for the food and the pearls, though!

 

[Caitlin]

The food was as good as it gets. So were the pearls. Those pearls are way under-priced for what they are. Makes me want to collect them.

 

[patriciadear]

Welcome home to all! The Sea of Cortez pearls are amazing.. just amazing. To me, they are just as beautiful as Tahitian pearls. I love the light sky blue baroque pearl..but the deep rainbow colors in the others are fantastic. What a wonderful trip. If you have more purchases to show, I'd love to see them. You say the pearls are under priced.. but of course you went directly to the source. Have you researched the retail prices yet? I've seen some Cortez pearls on EBay.. they sell quickly and the prices sometimes go sky high. I'll bet you are planning your next trip as we speak.. So glad you posted the shells and a photo of the thick nacre. The golden setting for the deep purple pearl reminds me of a perfectly curling wave.. the pearl and it's setting are in accord. Each enhances the other. Hope to see more jewelry and pearls soon... Thanks so much for the postings.

 

[Caitlin]

I only said that because these pearls are so exceeding rare about 5 kilos a year. The best do command very high prices and occur in a bigger range of colors than Tahitians. Most of the colors are different than Tahitian colors. These are more comparable to abalone pearl colors, IMO.

People are lucky they keep a range of pearls in their store. Mostly singletons or earrings. The AAA are set in gold, the A in silver. I forget which the AA are set in. So my earrings are A quality. Yet you can see a lot of color moving around on them.

If these pearls were well known, they'd sell out the day after harvest and there would be none for the store. So a visit to the store now will get you priceless pearls at reasonable prices mine were 20% off at About $150.

They would like to harvest in December to get that little extra kick from the cooler water, but keeping them on lines during the Monsoon is a big risk, so they harvest in the early summer.

The summer seems to be coming up quickly.....