Where to buy Gold Philippine South Sea Pearls from the U.S.?

[Nuke]

Hi all! I live in the USA and am very interested in buying a pair of Golden South Sea Pearl stud earrings as well as a single strand necklace. I'm originally from the Philippines but haven't been home in about ten years, so I really want these pearls to genuinely be from the motherland! What advice can you all give me in terms of purchasing from a U.S. location/online?

 

[jshepherd]

Most sellers will either have golds from Indonesia or the Philippines. Knowing where they are from can be dependent upon how they buy. Your best bet would be to contact them and ask.

 

[Cyril Roger Brossard]

check this link.

Tucson GJX Gem and Jewelry Show
GJX Pavillion

JCK Las Vegas
Mandalay Hotel

Couture Las Vegas
Wynn Hotel

Those will be from your homeland...

You may as well choose directly from their catalog online then enter your email and contact references...

 

[Cees]

Saw last week on the Bangkok Jewelry Fair from a Kobe pearl trader very high luster golden pearls, was in doubt if these pearls were enchanted (treated) so asked and the seller admitted these were. For me it is difficult to buy from sellers who stock them. Have no confidence anymore then.

 

[Cyril Roger Brossard]

Saw last week on the Bangkok Jewelry Fair from a Kobe pearl trader very high luster golden pearls, was in doubt if these pearls were enchanted (treated) so asked and the seller admitted these were. For me it is difficult to buy from sellers who stock them. Have no confidence anymore then.

This may be due to the lax policies when it comes to pearl classification. I have been disappointed years ago learning about the various techniques to enhance the appearance of pearls. But I think this is at the expense of the producer's name. Again not being a specialist I find it awkward to pronounce a definitive judgment. But I do understand why some companies may resort to such techniques. Business is business after all and whatever it takes to sell may be deemed acceptable by many.
This said buying from a know company may give you at least the assurance that what you buy is indeed genuine. (they would loose so much selling altered product... this is a small world after all).

 

[Cees]

Cyril, for you, being a pearl farm manager for Jewelmer it must be extremely painful to see what is happening to the pearls with the techniques used to change appearances. Especially when you are also so busy to keep bio diversity for pearl growth in a pristine environment as a premier objective to be able to produce the most beautiful South Sea pearls in the world. With success and there is not much more which can be expected from you.
Those, involved in enchanting pearls, whould be monitored and registered and maybe published as suppliers as a warning. Then some traders may return on the right path again.

 

[Cyril Roger Brossard]

Fake, faux, imitation, simulated, enchanted, manipulated, enhanced, this reminds me about infringement, plagiarism and counterfeiting… Although we may not correlate pearl business with such drastic words (God forbid), one may be tempted to contemplate the fact that what is sold under a name is eventually reflecting upon all other products sharing the same name. I think that the pearl farmers that are NOT using any bead (a core) will consider themselves the “genuine pearl” producers, denigrating other that may use a core to obtain a pearl, for them such would be “imitation” of pearls and not the real deal.
This said a pearl isn’t produced out of the blue! The mollusks won’t just decide to do a pearl. If you may indulge me, a pearl is a form of countermeasure aimed to stop an attack (not so poetic but biologically speaking correct). So technically a pearl starts with a core, some may be organic, other may be inorganic but the resultant would always be an encystation sometimes called a pearl.
So what about it being an imitation? Well one is a true wonder of nature and the other a delicate feat of expertise. Is the pearl ALL about the composition of its core? Both are eventually covered with layers of composite material that is aragonite, conchyolin and both may have the same proteinic and lipoid content, nothing added!(no dye, no boost, nothing). Some are called natural others are called cultured.

Pearls may be mabe glued to each other and filled with wax, pearls may be made of mother-of-pearl or coral, pearls may be found to be so thin-coating that the core may be seen by transparency, pearls may be a mixture of glue and fish scale, a byproduct of resin and dye, a glass bead and still be called pearls. And some are polished, treated, colored.

Yes I do find this sad, and yes I do feel myself being manipulated by shady individuals in view of such abnormalities.

When I held in my hand a gold pearl for the first time, I felt a surge of excitement seeing the concretization of theories, experimentations and personal decisions.
When I was made aware that some producers came up with dye techniques to enhance the color I felt cheated.
Months of analysis, thousands of hours of research, efforts, trial and errors, stress all reduced to nothing.

The effort belittled by a short cut?

The concretization of a teamwork diminished by unscrupulous entities?

I do not know much about pearls, but to simply reply I’ll just say that the problem may be more complicated and driven by an old foe… that is greed (and deceit).



Ps: I am not a pearl farm manager for Jewelmer. But I do love Jewelmer!