Comments on: Pearls in my Oysters…

By: jim

jim — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 04:26:35 +0000

our company is into pearl culture. anyone interested in buying loose authentic Philippine South Sea Pearls, pls contact me by email jimpab76@gmail.com

we also culture raw and processed mabe pearls same as in the photo both from the pinctada maxima oyster and pteria penguin.

thanks!

By: shelby

shelby — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:33:10 +0000

this is awsome i would love to have one

By: Ted

Ted — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 22:06:51 +0000

I think i would rather slice the gonads of those people involved with the zte/nbn deal ;-)

By: anonymous paul

anonymous paul — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:55:21 +0000

oops. i meant to say freshwater pearl production is in the thousands of tons per year, not hundreds… so much for the build up ;)

By: Marketman

Marketman — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 04:51:56 +0000

anonymous paul, thanks for that. OMG, I had no idea they sliced the oysters testicles and lodged the irritant THERE! I would be frigging annoyed if that were me! But if I understood the locals correctly, these particularly oysters grow pretty fast and they only leave the implant in for a year, hence the abundance of small MOP plates and not the really big ones. At any rate, thanks for the info… I certainly learned something… for other readers, anonymous paul is in a profession that would require him to possess this knowledge, so it is expert advice… :) If I were a militant shell I’d slice open one of those pearl farmer’s gonads open and see what kind of pearl HE produced after two years! And yes fake hunters, rub the pearl on your teeth, don’t bite. And if you have caps, try using a real tooth… :)

By: anonymous paul

anonymous paul — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 04:21:09 +0000

actually, there are activists against pearl cultivation. oysters, particularly the pinctada margaritifera and pinctada maxima are used to produce south sea and tahitian pearls. they are implanted with a nucleus (“irritant”) of shell particles obtained from freshwater clams. using other forms of nuclei will render the oyster dead. an incision is made in the oysters’ gonads and inserted with the desired size of pearl to produce in mind. so yes, the oyster is hurt. but it is not killed. upon harvesting 2 to 3 years later the oyster can be used again. the oysters can only take in one implant at a time. and during harvest, only about 30% will be considered gem quality. and only a fraction (maybe less than 5%) of that 30% will be the round and clean and very expensive pearls we know of. they do have some use for the “rejects”. some are ground up and mixed in beauty products as facial creams, pills and lipstick.

the japanese usually farm akoya pearls/oysters which yield very consistent round pearls of about 8mm. south sea pearls are generally found in larger sizes but greater variety of shapes. there have been technological advances made in freshwater pearling that has produced freshwater pearls in same sizes as south seas. considering production of south seas range in only the tens of tons per year versus the hundreds or so tons per year of freshwater pearls, there will obviously be a great variance in price. so be careful when buying!

to test if a pearl is real or not you can RUB it against your tooth but don’t bite. or better yet, you can rub two pearls together lightly or try to scratch with a fingernail. you’ll be trying to look for grittiness.

By: Ted

Ted — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 02:02:04 +0000

Everything but the jam can be had here in the U.S. so the Jam is priceless!!!

The cultured pearls are also cheap at honolulu’s tiange. You can have a string of pearls for less than $20.

By: sonia

sonia — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:03:57 +0000

Thanks for your response MM. Agree with you that a lot of those paintings on MOP are cheesy. We sourced most of what we featured in the book from Spain as they were a favorite souvenir item from the Philippines.Having Luna and Hidalgo — and our national hero, Jose Rizal –paint on them raised these collectibles a notch higher than just being collectibles.

Cheers to you and thanks for a consistently engaging ( addicting even!) blog. I love it that you do everything YOUR way

By: Trish

Trish — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:09:52 +0000

Beautiful :)

By: shalimar

shalimar — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 20:02:30 +0000

No pearls on the valentine’s wish? I lost the other half of my pearl earrings and its not a cheap one.. hay.Am single this valentine’s am just going to hang out with my crew mates at SOBE.

But I will go for silver jewellry I love good ethnic pieces which I love to scour on my travels.