We are usually in booth #1001 in the wholesale section… look forward to seeing you there!
Sarah, Fuji & Lynne.

Friday, 1 June 2012 noon to 6pm
Sat. 2 June 2012 10am to 6pm
Sunday 3 June 2012 11am to 5pm

We are usually booth #1012 in the wholesale section… look forward to seeing
you there. Best regards from Sarah & Fuji.

Friday, 6 April 2012 noon to 6pm
Sat. 7 April 2012 10am to 6pm
Sunday 8 April 2012 11am to 5pm

We are usually booth #1012 in the wholesale section… look forward to seeing
you there. Best regards from Sarah & Fuji.

 
Friday, 30 March 2012 noon to 6pm
Sat, 31 March 2012 10am to 6pm
Sun, 1 April 2012 11am to 5pm

We are usually in booth #1001 in the wholesale section… look forward to seeing you there!
Sarah, Fuji & Lynne.

The Japan origin silver (manufacturing has since been driven out to Southeast Asia by costs in Japan) was 925/ooo and the plating lasted years with gold (ie vermeil) and decades with rhodium.   The requirement that the snapper be of  the same alloy as the box of the clasp was a problem because silver snappers tended to lose their springiness and require re-tensioning with pliers.  After it became legal to sell silver clasps with steel bladed snappers, the rhodium plated silver clasps for the Japan market became the most durable and trouble-free option, the best value for money in our opinion.  Many seem unchanged after years of use.

Given the recent gold price, the need for clasps that are substantial enough to function well at a silver price is undiminished.  We use silver rhodium plated clasps from a Japanese company manufacturing in Thailand.  Gold plated silver (ie vermeil) clasps we source in Japan, and India style hooks in US.   The former probably are 85 or 90% silver, the latter at least 7o%.   We believe it is more important that we have been able to weed out a lot of lemons, insist on soldered jump rings for durability, and upon a mechanism that works without looking.

These clasps were purchased in pre-1970 Hong Kong, where false marking of gold was the rule.  Most of them have a distinct dimple on the back where the false stamp was polished away at our request by the suppliers.  They were however unable to apply a stamp to the bottom of the clasp without damaging it;  as a consolation the correct fineness was at our request stamped on the snapper.

The lowest  actual fineness of the yellow gold alloy clasps probably is 475/ooo, and these are stamped “475″, others are 500/ooo, stamped “12k” on the snapper.

The white gold alloy is 2:2:6, ie 2 parts gold, 2 parts palladium and 6 parts silver, and the snappers are stamped “226″.

Such legacy clasps are being offered with necklaces at prices below what it would cost to make the clasp in 2012.  Pacific Pearls, with little experience dealing in precious metals, offers them as alloy, meaning a gold content at least equivalent to 10k in the yellow gold alloy, and 20% gold in the white gold alloy.   This information is provided to the best of our knowledge and belief, and our liability in cases where such a description is deceptive shall be limited to repurchasing the offending item.

A few years on, the Hong Kong Tourist Association became concerned with eliminating false marking, and hence gold items were required to have not only a correct fineness stamp but also an ID stamp from the maker or seller.  This caused problems for imported gold items that had no ID stamp, as it is not possible to add one to most clasps.   Despite such obstacles, Hong Kong quickly earned a reputation as a reliable source of gold jewellery.

Various baroque flame type (mantle cultivated) bead nucleated freshwater pearls

close, since mussels have different growth patterns. At least two fundamentally different methods of freshwater pearl cultivation utilizing round bead nuclei are in use.

Most of the Chinese bead-nucleated freshwater pearls available since 2003 belong to a new category. We call them flame type, having learned that some of our suppliers use Chinese words such as ya`n zhu- 炎珠 meaning flame pearls. Such shapes result from nucleating existing pearl sacs in the mantle. Because the sac does not grow around the bead, there is not a good fit. Also, the incision made in the pearl sac to harvest seldom heals neatly. Instead, the cut edges tend to grow away from an inserted nucleus, and this predisposes the pearls to have considerably long “tails”, that is, the typical flame shape. Such pearls were not cultivated in Japan, where in-body nucleation technology was readily available. The latter is the only kind of fw pearl farming still ongoing in Japan, albeit on a vestigial scale. For details, see: Japan Kasumi-ga-Ura pearls and in-body nucleated pearls.

Flame-type Cfw pearls come from a production stream that shifts the strategy of mantle cultivation away from maximizing number of pearls to maximizing size. As described in 2007 by Doug Fiske (GIA) and Jeremy Sheppard, fewer pearl sacs are grafted per mussel, and preference is given to the ends, which are less likely than the middle to be subject to pressure from growth. During the first harvest of non-nucleated pearls, the operator makes a decision based on the harvested pearl’s shape, for each individual pearl sac. If it suggests enough depth is available, insert a bead nucleus to make a flame pearl. If it is large but flat insert a flat shell nucleus to make a coin pearl. Sometimes insert a reject pearl, which makes a rather flat pearl with a distinctive shape. Or insert nothing, and a non-nucleated second harvest pearl, commonly called Cfw keshi, will grow in that pearl sac. Not surprisingly, strands have appeared in which all of these types of pearls are mixed.

As in-body nucleation comes within reach of more cultivators in China, and holds out hope for eventually competing with round southsea pearls from tropical Pinctada shells, it is likely that flame-type bead nucleation will decrease. Meanwhile, large non-nucleated and flame-type China freshwater pearls are appearing, often without introduction, in multi-colored baroque southsea pearl strands. The world of odd-ball pearls is certainly richer for the appearance of flame pearls.

Smoother surface China freshwater pearls Dec 2011; most are in-body bead nucleated

In-body bead nucleation has been done on a relatively small scale in China, probably since around 1990. We were surprised by the beauty and size of the pearls of this type that we have been able to acquire since late 2007. At 13-16mm diameter larger than anything else of this type, including Lake Biwa and Kasumi-ga-Ura bead-nucleated pearls cultivated at least since 1980, the strands we assembled between 2007 and 2009 suggest that these pearls have been cultivated since more than a few years. Their cost was high, as can be expected of new products with few sources, in a previously impossible size.

10 to 12mm in-body bead nucleated China fw pearls, 2011

Beginning in 2010, bead nucleated pearls we believe are in-body cultivated became widely available in more common sizes in the range of 9 to 12mm. Still unable to get much by way of explanation from suppliers, we persuaded a dentist to make some x-rays of strands we felt sure must be in-body. After a little adjusting the dose, he obtained films showing two drill holes in every nucleus – the one from implantation and the one from assembly to strand. Please see Page 2 for an explanation of the use of pre-drilled nuclei in freshwater pearl cultivation.

Bead nucleated China freshwater pearls, probably in-body, 2011

Our long-standing observation that China produces rounder pearls without than with nucleus may soon be reversed. The roundest in-body bead nucleated Chinese pearls we recently obtained still have dimples and other minor surface irregularities, but are well matched in color, luster and quality. Pricing resembles that of exceptionally short flame type pearls, which usually have smoother surface but rarely round shape.

13 to 16+mm diameter China kasumi, 2007

Baroque in-body bead nucleated pearls tend to have a surface texture not seen in mantle-cultivated flame bead-nuc pearls. It should come as no surprise that these pearls have many similarities to Japan Kasumi pearls, as those are all made by in-body nucleation. Some of the roughest baroques show bits of nucleus in the deepest depressions, but many have deep colors and/or strong goldy highlights. Semi-baroque strands without major irregularities include surprisingly strong luster and colors.

We see these pearls as an indication that Chinese production of freshwater pearls can indeed supply every type of fw pearl previously produced in Japan. Not only is the variety of pearl types now produced in China much wider, but the art of in-body cultivation could some day flourish there to an extent only dreamt of in Japan. That is to say, it could challenge every other cultivation of large high-quality pearls, all the while providing beautifully textured baroques like those shown here, a look unique to freshwater pearls.

Please read Page 2 for more detail.

Relative roundness is easily compared, and costly to specify in freshwater pearl orders. It also seems to vary inversely to strong lustre, more frequently found in ovoid pearls. Probably the most intensive lustre-enhancing treatments are lavished upon the roundest pearls, because their scarcity enables them to fetch higher prices. To 2010, China produced far rounder pearls without nuclei than with round bead nuclei. For pictures and more detail please see flame type bead nucleated pearls and in-body bead-nucleated pearls .

Read Page 2 for more details on non-nucleated fw pearl farming.

These pearls differ from those that grow during a mussel’s youth, in that their shapes are less full – instead they have concavities, texture and altogether different character. The more mature mussels grow much more slowly than at the peak growth stage mostly utilized for pearl cultivation. This means that, though a pearl as large in area as the pearl sac will eventually grow, it will tend to remain thin for a long time. Unusual styles of processing, eg eccentric tangentially-drilled “petals” are needed to utilize pearls that are beautiful and lightweight, but too thin to string or set in traditional ways.

Harvesting this type of pearls requires only that care is taken to keep the mussel alive during the first harvest, and for some years thereafer until the crop is deemed ready. However, by adding the operation of inserting a bead or flat shell piece into appropriately shaped pearl sacs, immediately following the first harvest, flame-type bead nucleated pearls and coin pearls can be produced simultaneously with these non-nucleated second harvest pearls. Now part of the same production stream, it is no longer unusual to find pearls with and without nuclei mixed in strands. Since mussels may live many years, the harvesting (with and without insertions of nuclei) can be repeated, but the yield keeps diminishing with the natural slowing of nacre production as mussels reach adult size. Chinese producers get 3 harvests of mantle-cultivated pearls from most of their mussels.  Since it is presently not possible to distinguish between pearls of second and subsequent harvests, we include all of these in our definition of second harvest pearls.

A new type of pearl, called non-nucleated or keshi by most sellers, appeared around the end of 2008. Generally thicker than the non-nucleated second harvest pearls but thinner and more curvy than baroque coin pearls made with flat shell nuclei, they appear to be distinct from both of those types. For more details, please see: lightweight coins.

Second harvests from pearl sacs that have produced coin pearls tend to have more regular shapes and not to require special drilling. With all these improvements, there are fewer old-style thin keshi on the market.

For background and details of the use of terms such as keshi and Biwa for freshwater pearls, please read freshwater pearl naming.