pearlescence
purveyor of pearls UK/EU
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2007
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- 4,062
we are all trying to think of a better and more apt and descriptive name
I'll suggest tosheroon pearls again
I'll suggest tosheroon pearls again
"Souffle' Pearls"
- Thread starter GemGeek
- Start date
lisa c
Perpetual Pearl Student
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- Jun 28, 2009
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Thanks Wendy! and I just was working backward and saw the earlier pictures and that's where I read posts about the muck.
Maybe names like "pondslime" and "muck" stick because we're all little kids playing w mudpies, shrieking but loving to be grossed out in our hearts. My kids and I mixed up a bunch of fruit juices that tasted great but looked like poison or dirty water. They called it pond slime, too. It didn't sell too well on the corner...they didn't care. They loved watching faces squinch up when they showed the color, and said the name.
Souffle seems kind of tame for those wild colors. They look like Sweet-Tart merengues (how the heck do you spell this?) to me.
Maybe names like "pondslime" and "muck" stick because we're all little kids playing w mudpies, shrieking but loving to be grossed out in our hearts. My kids and I mixed up a bunch of fruit juices that tasted great but looked like poison or dirty water. They called it pond slime, too. It didn't sell too well on the corner...they didn't care. They loved watching faces squinch up when they showed the color, and said the name.
Souffle seems kind of tame for those wild colors. They look like Sweet-Tart merengues (how the heck do you spell this?) to me.
Last edited:
GemGeek
Pearlista
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- Sep 20, 2006
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- 9,196
13 x 14mm to 16 x 18mm ish.
Caitlin
Well-known member
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- Dec 11, 2004
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- 8,502
We don't sell overtly, but members can ask price questions. If someone sees anything they like they can get touch with the owner directly. I think(hope) a lot of buying and selling is going on, but we want to keep the details or any impression of sellers approaching buyers isspamming)out of the public forum.
Education is our mission, but people make all kinds of connections on the side. I came here to ask pearly questions. I had no idea people made friends on forums! At first, I wasn't too into that, but it happened anyway. I have very dear friends, I got to know through the forum. Friends trade, or buy and sell in many other venues, a forum just adds another one.
I for one am interested in the wholesale/ retail price ranges for the souffle pearls. I am clueless what they go for. However, since more are most likely coming on the market, I'd like to have a ballpark figure, since I don't know a website where they hang out. Or a link, if there is one.
The colors very abalone-like. (My highest complement.)
Education is our mission, but people make all kinds of connections on the side. I came here to ask pearly questions. I had no idea people made friends on forums! At first, I wasn't too into that, but it happened anyway. I have very dear friends, I got to know through the forum. Friends trade, or buy and sell in many other venues, a forum just adds another one.
I for one am interested in the wholesale/ retail price ranges for the souffle pearls. I am clueless what they go for. However, since more are most likely coming on the market, I'd like to have a ballpark figure, since I don't know a website where they hang out. Or a link, if there is one.
The colors very abalone-like. (My highest complement.)
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pattye
Pearl Scholar
- Joined
- Dec 26, 2005
- Messages
- 11,403
Hi Caitlin and All,
Here is a link to a lovely strand on Kojima's website, just to give you an idea. Singles are usually a bit more. Lots of interesting, rich colors here! Also love Blaire's green ones!
http://shop.kojimapearl.com/products/deep-pondslime-keshi-strand
Here is a link to a lovely strand on Kojima's website, just to give you an idea. Singles are usually a bit more. Lots of interesting, rich colors here! Also love Blaire's green ones!
http://shop.kojimapearl.com/products/deep-pondslime-keshi-strand
knotty panda
Pearl Knotting & Wire Expert
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2007
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- 1,766
After I read the nucleating description on Sarah's website, I thought souffle was appropo. Tell me what Tosheroon is?
jshepherd
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2004
- Messages
- 6,165
I hope this hasn't been posted yet. I just received this from G&G at GIA.
?Souffl?? Freshwater
Cultured Pearls
Jack Lynch (Sea Hunt Pearls, San Francisco) had an attractive new product he sold as ?Souffl? pearls? at the Tucson gem shows in February. They were large, had high luster, and appeared in a wide range of reportedly natural colors. According to Mr. Lynch, they debuted at the September 2009 Hong Kong Jewellery and Gem Fair as ?hollow keshi.? From their relatively light heft, the dealer probably assumed they were hollow.
Mr. Lynch gave us some undrilled and sliced samples for examination. They ranged from 17.7 to 18.6 mm in maximum dimension, and were white, light orangy pink, and light pink; all were baroque shaped. Microradiography revealed large irregular areas of a relatively uniform gray color in their interiors -- that is, areas more translucent to X-rays than the surrounding nacre -- along with smaller darker, more X-ray transparent areas.
When one of the samples was cut in half, a dark, viscous liquid present quickly dried into the gray matter that filled the pearl?s interior. The mortar-like gray material was completely separate from the outer layers of the pearl, and chemical analysis showed it contained mostly silicon and aluminum -- proving it was not a calcium carbonate or organic material connected to pearls or mollusks.
Mr. Lynch?s supplier subsequently informed him that ?muck,? possibly pond mud, had been used to initiate pearl growth. Since this material was deliberately placed within existing pearl sacs in the host mollusks, the resulting cultured pearls cannot be classified as ?keshi.?
The ?nuclei? are unstable to drilling and may not be present in the drilled cultured pearls, which would explain why the strands have a relatively low heft.
- Nick Sturman
GIA Laboratory, Bangkok
- Elisabeth Strack
Gemmologisches Institut Hamburg, Germany
?Souffl?? Freshwater
Cultured Pearls
Jack Lynch (Sea Hunt Pearls, San Francisco) had an attractive new product he sold as ?Souffl? pearls? at the Tucson gem shows in February. They were large, had high luster, and appeared in a wide range of reportedly natural colors. According to Mr. Lynch, they debuted at the September 2009 Hong Kong Jewellery and Gem Fair as ?hollow keshi.? From their relatively light heft, the dealer probably assumed they were hollow.
Mr. Lynch gave us some undrilled and sliced samples for examination. They ranged from 17.7 to 18.6 mm in maximum dimension, and were white, light orangy pink, and light pink; all were baroque shaped. Microradiography revealed large irregular areas of a relatively uniform gray color in their interiors -- that is, areas more translucent to X-rays than the surrounding nacre -- along with smaller darker, more X-ray transparent areas.
When one of the samples was cut in half, a dark, viscous liquid present quickly dried into the gray matter that filled the pearl?s interior. The mortar-like gray material was completely separate from the outer layers of the pearl, and chemical analysis showed it contained mostly silicon and aluminum -- proving it was not a calcium carbonate or organic material connected to pearls or mollusks.
Mr. Lynch?s supplier subsequently informed him that ?muck,? possibly pond mud, had been used to initiate pearl growth. Since this material was deliberately placed within existing pearl sacs in the host mollusks, the resulting cultured pearls cannot be classified as ?keshi.?
The ?nuclei? are unstable to drilling and may not be present in the drilled cultured pearls, which would explain why the strands have a relatively low heft.
- Nick Sturman
GIA Laboratory, Bangkok
- Elisabeth Strack
Gemmologisches Institut Hamburg, Germany
kojimapearl
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2007
- Messages
- 432
Here is a little "blurb" that Fuji Voll wrote about these pearls that in Tucson we were calling "Lost-Nuc"....have to admit though that "souffle" is much more appearling of a name!Good work Jack!
:
Fuji not only has a very distinctive writing style, he has also written many pages of information for his website and promises more in the future.
A curious variety of freshwater pearls, rather flat and lumpy in a somewhat distinctive way, are surprisingly lightweight for their size. This turns out to be because they are nucleated with a soluble material, most of which may be removed after holes are drilled in the pearls, making them hollow.
An obvious concern about the strength of such hollow pearls might limit their usefulness for some types of jewellery. Nacre thickness reached in freshwater pearl cultivation exceeds that of all other types; that makes it more likely to produce durable hollow pearls than any other. However, because the inside of the nacre layer is exposed to the air, it is reasonable to expect color and luster changes in hollow pearls over time that are not as commonly observed in other pearls. If one is not already in use, it may be necessary to invent a treatment to coat the inside of hollow pearls. The light weight is sure to be welcomed by many among a continuing escalation of pearl size.
Similar hollow pearls are the subject of a forum about "Souffle' pearls" (a name chosen by Jack Lynch of Sea Hunt Pearls) that is ongoing as of March 2010 on Jeremy Sheppard's pearlguide.com .
Until more is known about these pearls' durability in various uses, and about how large a premium buyers are willing to pay over similar shaped heavier pearls with shell nuclei, Pacific Pearls has made only a small investment in hollow, lost-nucleus pearls.... but we could not ignore a new product made using a previously unknown technique.
: Fuji not only has a very distinctive writing style, he has also written many pages of information for his website and promises more in the future.
A curious variety of freshwater pearls, rather flat and lumpy in a somewhat distinctive way, are surprisingly lightweight for their size. This turns out to be because they are nucleated with a soluble material, most of which may be removed after holes are drilled in the pearls, making them hollow.
An obvious concern about the strength of such hollow pearls might limit their usefulness for some types of jewellery. Nacre thickness reached in freshwater pearl cultivation exceeds that of all other types; that makes it more likely to produce durable hollow pearls than any other. However, because the inside of the nacre layer is exposed to the air, it is reasonable to expect color and luster changes in hollow pearls over time that are not as commonly observed in other pearls. If one is not already in use, it may be necessary to invent a treatment to coat the inside of hollow pearls. The light weight is sure to be welcomed by many among a continuing escalation of pearl size.
Similar hollow pearls are the subject of a forum about "Souffle' pearls" (a name chosen by Jack Lynch of Sea Hunt Pearls) that is ongoing as of March 2010 on Jeremy Sheppard's pearlguide.com .
Until more is known about these pearls' durability in various uses, and about how large a premium buyers are willing to pay over similar shaped heavier pearls with shell nuclei, Pacific Pearls has made only a small investment in hollow, lost-nucleus pearls.... but we could not ignore a new product made using a previously unknown technique.
kojimapearl
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2007
- Messages
- 432
Thanks Jeremy, I will let him know!
jshepherd
Well-known member
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- Jun 22, 2004
- Messages
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No, just a squatter. They are accepting offers of $5k and above.
jshepherd
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2004
- Messages
- 6,165
I think the pearl grade is a definite factor in the durability. This photo was a strand shot in Tucson with the same type of souffle or muck pearls.
https://www.pearl-guide.com/forum/64662-post57.html
https://www.pearl-guide.com/forum/64662-post57.html
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