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Any Jewelry Experts?

Emil

By Emil
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Ani Newbie

Ani

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I am looking to buy a pearl set, earrings and a necklace. I want to spend around $300.00. Any experts out there? Where should I go, Zales, etc? Any online place I should look into?

 

Thanks.

 

Costco...Great quality pearls...but i am not sure about 300, maybe 500 to 700...

 

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MosJan Mentor

MosJan

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if you don't know anyone who can get you super nice $$$ price then go to Costco - the price and the quality are guaranteed by them

 

if you find any that you wish to know the quality, stop by at our shop in Pasadena i'll look in to it for you, just make sure you ask the store to gave you a day for cash refund, in case it's good for nothing you can return for your money back not a store credit

 

and stay away form Freshwater pearls or odd shape man made pearls.

if it's darker color ask them if it's color enhanced...

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Takoush Newbie

Takoush

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Emil:

 

The better pearls are supposed to have like a little bit transparency sheen to it. I have a good Armenian friend who is a jeweler here in NJ and whom I truly and solely trust; and that's where you should try to go in LA. A reputable by word of mouth jeweler or a friend or a friend's friend. I bought a few items from TV or online and they fall apart or were not by far quality items. Now I am turned off buying from anyone but through a friend that I know and I trust or someone I heard that he is trustworthy and very good by word of mouth. Especially when you are spending your hard earned money and buying fine pearls or diamonds.

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MosJan Mentor

MosJan

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6.5-7mm White Akoya Saltwater Pearl Necklace - Knotted between each

pearl on twin silk strands. sounds good -

 

Make sure they have good, unconditional return policies with no restocking fees

 

staying away from using grades such as AAA+ and Gem. This implies that a company using these grades, sells a sub-par AAA quality. It also creates confusion for the customer.

 

Even worse is when a company goes far beyond the "accepted" A to AAA scale by using a AAAA grade.

you need to find the good color- it's hard to see the color on the web ;) - if in person pay attention to it's shine and make sure you don't get something "milky" in color -

 

 

some more info for you - $200 or $300 might not get you the best pearl but still your paying for it so pay attention to the quality

 

PEARL GRADING & QUALITY

 

Pearls are graded according to several characteristics – lustre, shape, colour, surface and size.

Lustre

 

The quality of a pearl's nacre gives the lustrous quality for which pearls are renowned. Putting it simply, it refers to how shiny the pearls are:

 

* Low lustre pearls appear milky or chalky.

* High lustre pearls reflect light well and show mirror-like reflections.

 

Put your pearls on a white surface or a white cloth near a window on a reasonably bright day and see how the pearls reflect the window frame. The clearer the reflection, the more lustrous the pearls.

 

Lustre depends a great deal on the quality of care bestowed on the product in its early growing stages. The better the pearl producer cares for his molluscs, the better the pearl.

 

As with natural pearls, high quality lustrous pearls make up only a fraction of the pearls available on the market, and command the very highest prices.

 

Since a very lustrous baroque pearl is probably more desirable than a round milky pearl, lustre is generally considered to be one of the most important aspects of a pearl's grading and valuation.

Shape

 

Pearls come in a fascinating variety of shapes, and whilst the rounder the pearl, the more valuable it is, the baroque and off-round shapes have become very popular today. Naturally, this puts the price of the pearls within the budget of a larger market.

 

Round is generally the most expensive variety. A proper round pearl is symmetrical and will roll in a straight line. Again, only a small percentage of total pearl production will give you true round pearls.

 

There are various terms such as 'near round', 'off-round', 'almost round', all used as indications that the pearls are 'roundish' in various degrees.

 

Other terms used are egg round/oval or potato which indicate an 'extended' round shape – but which can often look round. You might find that these pearls will look round in photographs and where the shape is not stated, you will quite often 'perceive' them to be round. These would usually be covered in the Semi-baroque category.

 

Semi-baroque is a general term that typically covers regular shapes of pearls that are neither round nor off-round and would include button, pear, rondelle, drop shapes and ovals as mentioned above.

 

Baroque is a general term that indicates an irregular shape. Whilst typically they are the most inexpensive type of pearls, certain specimens can be more valuable than round pearls. Famous baroque pearls have been designed as special jewellery pieces throughout history.

Colour

 

Pearls come in a wide range of natural colours/shades, and many pearls are dyed to suit fashion requirements. Natural colours include the whites, creams, pinks, lilacs, silver and gold shades as well as black for the Tahitian pearls from the black-lipped oyster.

 

Besides the body colour, in more expensive pearls you will usually find colour overtones which reflect the pearl's heart; for example, a white pearl may have a silver or light pink overtone.

 

Colour is a matter of personal taste and is often selected on the grounds of whether it suits the wearer's skin tone or not.

 

Geographically, Americans are said to prefer pink pearls, Europeans prefer white and cream, whereas South Americans and Middle Eastern people go more for the cream and gold colours.

 

Cream and gold colours are believed to suit dark and olive skins, while some feel whites and pinks are more suitable for Caucasians and Asians.

 

Try clothes of the same colour as the pearls – if the colour of the clothes suits you, then the pearls should do as well.

Surface

 

The fewer blemishes a pearl has, the more valuable it is. Blemishes are marks, bumps or little pot holes which, in reality, give each strand its unique identifying factors.

 

To find pearls without blemishes is rare and their price is likely to be astronomical, given other quality factors being high. One has to remember, pearls are organically grown and just like the human body, no two are exactly alike.

 

Think of blemishes on pearls as moles or fingerprints. However, any serious damage (e.g. cracks, nacre chipped off, etc.) to the nacre is to be avoided as almost certainly this will affect the longevity of the pearl.

 

When assessing pearls, always look at each pearl individually and carefully to judge the surface quality.

Size

 

The larger the pearl, the more valuable it is. Usually it would have been in the mollusc longer, thus incurring a longer/higher investment cost.

 

Each of the main types of pearls has a common range of sizes:

 

* Freshwater pearls typically range from 3mm up to 12mm,

* South Sea or Tahitian Pearls start from around 8mm right up to 18mm or larger.

* Akoya pearls average 4mm to 10mm.

 

Identical pearls of the same quality in sizes up to 5.5 or 6mm do not vary greatly in price. It might be 10/20% more for the next 0.5 or 1mm up in size. However, a jump of 1mm after 6mm, especially around 8 or 9mm (considered large), will cause the price to jump 50% or even 100%.

 

 

 

 

IMITATION PEARLS

 

The Queen of Gems

 

Absolute Pearls does not sell 'faux' or imitation pearls. We only sell Freshwater and Saltwater Cultured Pearls.

 

Unfortunately, many people still describe their 'faux pearls' as actual 'pearls' ('faux' is a French word meaning 'false'). Sometimes this is an honest mistake, sometimes not. It is all too easy for non-experts to be confused.

 

In the profession, the use of the word pearls on its own is recognised to refer to 'natural pearls', although it is accepted nowadays that cultured pearls account for most of the market.

 

Most imitation pearls are solid or hollow glass beads or plastic beads, quite often coated with a fish scale mixture called essence of the orient or pearl essence. Perhaps one of the most famous types of imitation pearls is 'Majorca Pearls' which are essentially solid glass beads covered with many coats of pearl essence and finished to a very high standard. These are often sold at higher prices than real pearls.

 

There are also what some people call 'semi-cultured' as a marketing ploy and is considered misleading. This is where either reject/discarded pearls or glass beads are covered with a powdered mother-of-pearl or similar coating to make them look real. These are classed as imitation.

 

Other matters to consider are all the factors for valuing and grading pearls. If the pearls are flawless, are perfectly matching, all the same lustre, size and colour, you can take it they are too good to be true!

 

The Tooth Test

This is the easiest, if not the most hygienic, test for telling if a pearl is an imitation or not. Simply, rub the pearl lightly along the biting edge of your upper front teeth. If it feels sandy or gritty, it is probably real. If smooth, it is probably imitation.

 

Although this test is not 100% foolproof, and other tests can be undertaken, you will probably be safe, unless somebody is seriously out to fool you.

 

You can further inspect the surface of the pearl with a magnifying glass (10x is industry standard). Real pearls typically have a smooth finish, whereas imitation pearls have a grainy finish. This is quite the opposite from the tooth test where a smooth look and a grainy feel indicates that the pearl is real.

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