South Sea Pearls Learn from our Expert

Hello, I'm David Norman. I'm a fifth generation pearl dealer, and though I've only been with Gem Shopping Network 18 months, I've been in the pearl industry my whole life, as have all my forefathers. Today we're going to talk about South Sea pearls. Now, Australian pearls come from the northwest area of Australia. They come out of the oyster called Pinctada maxima, which is the white-lipped or silver-lipped pearl oyster, and that's the great resource of Australia that gives us these pearls of amazing white and silver colours. South Sea pearls are normally found in Australia on the far northwest coast of Australia. It stretches 1,000 kilometres. It has extraordinary tidal systems up there, which are 15 metres, the tides, and it's the most remote and pristine area accessible only to seaplanes and boats. Australian South Sea pearls start at 9 or 10 millimetres, and they go up as high as 21 millimetres, so they are the largest pearls in the world of pearls. And when we're valuing and judging pearls, we're judging them by their size, their shape, their colour, their luster, and their cleanliness of skin. Size and shape and colour is a personal matter, but we never compromise if we can. When you, the consumer, are judging your pearls and looking at them and evaluating them, you're primarily evaluating the cleanliness of the skin and the strength of luster, and the stronger the luster, the more the coating of nacre around the bead that's put in the oyster. These Australian pearls are underwater growing for two years, and they get a beautiful, creamy nacre, and it's the nacre that's the most important. Ninety percent of all pearls have some surface blemishes. Ten percent will set clean. If your pearl has a lot of marks that are visible to the surface, it doesn't detract from it so much. It just means it's got these natural beauty marks, natural flaws. But if it's low luster, then it's a rather weak pearl. If your pearl has no marks at all on its surface that you can see, and has a very high luster, then you're looking at some of the rarest pearls in the world, which represent one to ten percent of any Australian pearl harvest. We only get one harvest a year in Australia, and it takes two years for the pearls to form. And out of that harvest, one percent will set clean and be completely clean and very bright, very lustrous. Ten percent of the pearls can set clean, and ninety percent will have some surface flaws. In our business, we supply some of the finest retailers in the world, and we're used to dealing with that top ten percent of a pearl harvest. And I'm bringing you at Gem Shopping Network pearls that only come in that top ten percent band. So the pearls are guaranteed to have high luster, good colour, and have great skins. And all pearls from Australia that we deal with have no treatment whatsoever. They're absolutely natural colour and natural luster. In the end, when you're judging your Australian pearls, you the consumer will decide yourself on the size and the shape. The colour will be white or silver, because that's the colour the Australian Host Oyster gives us. But when you're valuing pearls, the highest value pearls have the highest luster, the strongest luster, and the cleanest skins. And so if you choose a pearl with high luster and clean skins, you'll be walking away with the highest value item. Please be sure to tune in and catch one of our extraordinary pearl shows, where we'll bring you pearls from all around the world.