Tahitian_pearl_jewellery_Moorea  Tahitian Cultured Pearls - Buying Guide (part 1)

A good quality pearl is one with acceptable mother of pearl thickness (legally 0,8mm at the least) and quality, no matter of its shape or color. But only a trained and expert person can see it with the naked eye.

 Tahitian cultured pearls natural colors
Tahitian cultured pearls various shapes

Tahitian cultured Pearls come in a large variety of shapes. One could be round, pear or drop shaped, baroque or circled.

In fact, most of the Tahitian "black" pearls aren't black. Their natural color could be light grey as well as dark green or purple, pastel colors, turquoise blue, jade green, pink, or even multicolored as "peacock".

Some rare colors could add value to a set, as well as a unicolor or a multicolor set of pearls do (for earrings or pearls strands for example).

The Official Classification is precisely outlined in the "Official Journal" of French Polynesia. To that day there is no teaching available, thus it belongs to each jewelry store to evaluate and grade their pearls. Most use this classification. As prices depends on this grading, the same pearl could be expertised differently from one store to the other upon retailer's knowledge, expertise and professional ethics ! The local authorities do not operate any control.

You should be patient, looking, asking, curious in order to find your pearl at the fair price, because most of the time, very high pricing is not a high quality guarantee !

Setting pearl Eva Perles
Origin

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Official classification, care of pearls.