EN — LARRY ROMANOFF: The World of Pearls

 

The World of Pearls

By Larry Romanoff

 

A pearl in an oyster shell. Source

The World of Pearls Pdf 

 

 

The Internet is a Library of Pearl Misinformation

 

This may seem an irrelevant issue, but it isn’t irrelevant to the topic of this essay.

1. The Internet is highly censored. Google and similar are not search engines. Google is a gate-keeper. Its two main functions are to feed you only the information its owners want you to have, and to ensure you never see information its owners don’t want you to have.

2. The Internet is heavily sanitised. There are literally armies of people scouring the Internet with the intent of removing information and documents they don’t want you to see. This sanitisation applies equally to pearls as to most other parts of history and current affairs.

3. The Internet is highly politicised, meaning that the world of information – like the real world – is divided into “us” and “them”. It is easy to find glowing articles on “us” – the Western world, meaning the US, Israel, Japan, South Korea, and much of Europe. On the other hand, it is virtually impossible to find anything complimentary on “them” – on the “axis of evil” nations like Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, South Korea, etc. This is important to us in our world of pearls because we are dealing almost exclusively with Japan and China, and you would have difficulty finding a clearer example of “us” vs “them”. This means that most of the information on the internet about pearls will be sorted according to this agenda, generally “Japan good” and “China bad”. And of course, if Japan is “good”, its pearls must also be good, with the opposite true for China.

4. The information about pearls available on the Internet is subject to another severe constriction in that, just as with the diamond industry, Jews and Jewish interests own or control most of the pearl industry in Japan and other regions of the world outside China, this control relating not only to production but also to wholesaling and retailing of pearls and, even more especially, to their advertising and promotion. When we combine this aspect with the politicisation and the sanitising in #2 and #3 above, learning the truth about the world’s pearl industry becomes an almost impossible task.

5. The Internet does not appear to have a shortage of people who, in a spirit of wanting to be helpful, write and publish articles on a myriad of topics, including pearls, but who actually know little to nothing about the topic on which they are writing.

 

The result of these items is that most everything you will find on the Internet about pearls is either misinformation, political propaganda, or outright lies. With this feeble attempt to immunise you against misinformation, let’s see what we can learn about pearls.

 

Let’s Begin at the Beginning

 

 

#1: The first thing you need to know about pearls is that oysters are not very cooperative. An oyster couldn’t care less if its pearls were perfectly spherical or badly mis-shapen, and it harbors similar sentiments about color variations. You can already see where this is going.

 

#2: The second thing you need to know about pearls is that the pearl industry in Japan and the Western countries is hopelessly corrupt. The industry has been commercialised, industrialised, financialised and criminalised to an astonishing extent. The reason, of course, is money.

 

#3: The third thing you need to know about pearls is that “the world standard” for beautiful pearls, the famed “Japanese Akoya Pearl” is (a) not Japanese, and/or (b) not a pearl at all, but merely cheap costume jewelry selling (fraudulently) at breathtakingly inflated prices.

 

A Truncated History of Cultured Pearls

 

 

First, a few useful definitions: Understanding these definitions will permit you to sound intelligent and knowledgeable when talking to your friends about pearls, so pay attention.

 

To force an oyster to begin the creation of a pearl, a small incision is made in the oyster’s mantle (the fleshy part of the oyster), and something is inserted into that incision. That “something” inserted is called the nucleus, and the process of inserting it is called nucleation. If that “something” is a bit of fleshy tissue from another oyster, the process is called “tissue nucleation”; if it involves the insertion of a bead cut from an oyster shell, the process is called “bead nucleation”.

 

NOTE: The bits of flesh inserted into an oyster’s mantle are universally referred to as coming from a “donor” oyster, but the use of the word donor implies consent, and there is no reliable record of any oyster consenting to have itself cut into tiny bits to be inserted into other oysters. A more appropriate term would be “involuntary homicidal victim”.

 

A very long time ago, people realised that oysters and other mollusks produced pearls in response to an irritation from a foreign object invading the animal’s fleshy parts. This was most likely a parasite, but could have been the proverbial “grain of sand”. So, in attempts to encourage oysters to produce more pearls, people would make incisions and insert something foreign into the oyster’s mantle. The oyster would typically respond in one of two ways: (1) it would reject the implantation and expel the irritant, in which case no pearl would be formed, or (2) it would die. Neither result being commercially welcome, people looked for other methods and discovered that the insertion of bits of flesh from other oysters would not result in rejection, and pearls would actually be formed.

 

Unfortunately, very few of those pearls would be spherical in shape, thereby gravely reducing their attraction as fancy jewelry. For many decades, and even today, the Western media and Internet claim these unshapely pearls all originated in China, attributing this to (1) Chinese incompetence and laziness and (2) the Chinese Communist Party. But this is all cheap political mud-slinging. The truth is that for many decades tissue-nucleated oysters would almost invariably produce pearls that were not round, the result being due to the process and entirely unrelated to the nationality of the farmer performing the nucleation. Oysters nucleated by this process in Japan were equally as mis-shapen as those in China or anywhere else.

 

It was then discovered that a bead cut from an oyster shell would also not be rejected, thus permitting a pearl to form, but with the added attraction of the pearl being of the same shape as the nucleus – in other words, the pearls formed by this method would be spherical in shape, and now the world of cultured pearls was truly born.

 

Truly born, and almost immediately corrupted. I believe it was true for some decades that the Japanese conducted their pearl business honorably but, after being invaded by Jewish interests, the industry quite rapidly turned to financialisation, propaganda, and criminality.

 

The Race to the Bottom

 

 

In terms of pricing, size is extremely important with pearls. As a general rule, the price of pearls will double with each 1 mm increase in diameter. For a necklace, 6 mm is the smallest useful diameter, and the rule means that if we go from 6 mm to 10 mm we can expect to pay 8 to 10 times the price for pearls of an equal quality. If we go to 11 mm, we can expect to pay 20 times as much, and with 12 mm or 13 mm we might pay 40 times more. You can see the temptation for larger sizes.

 

But it must be understood that it takes a long time for an oyster to secrete sufficient nacre to produce a pearl of 10 mm in diameter. Following nucleation with a 3 mm spherical shell bead, an oyster must remain in Japanese-temperature sea water for 5 to 7 years to produce a pearl of this size. Aside from placing financial returns into the distant future, leaving an oyster in the water for such a long time involves severe risks because with each month and year the possibility greatly increases that the pearl will lose its spherical shape and be worthless, or that it will develop an undesirable color and also be of little value.

 

Yet another factor influencing the Japanese pearl industry is water pollution. A significant part of the pearl industry in Japan began with the production of freshwater pearls in Lake Biwa, which became famous for a short while until industrial pollution poisoned the lake and killed all the oysters and the industry. The same has happened with most of Japan’s coastal waters – industrial pollution has made them lethal to oysters and the radiation from Fukushima isn’t helping matters. The net result is that oysters left in Japanese waters for a long time, will die, necessitating the use of options that can shorten the growing period of pearls.

 

Let’s back up a step to make something clear about pearls. A normal, real pearl is composed of a tiny irritant at the core, surrounded by maybe 10 mm of pearl nacre. In other words, a normal, real pearl is essentially 100% pearl. When an oyster is nucleated with tissue, the tissue dissolves and the resulting pearl, while seldom spherical, is still essentially 100% pearl. But this percentage changes when an oyster is nucleated with a shell bead. If the final pearl diameter is 10 mm, then obviously the larger the bead, the less pearl nacre will be in that pearl.

 

And this is where greed infected the Japanese pearl industry with fraud and criminality. It quickly became apparent that if a 3 mm bead would produce a 10 mm pearl in 7 years, a 6 mm bead should be able to produce the same final size of pearl in only 3 years. And a 10 mm bead should be able to do the same in only 6 to 12 months. And this is precisely the development of the Japanese pearl industry.

 

 

For many reasons, Japan has been eliminated from all segments of the cultured pearl industry except the pearls of large and very large diameters – typically 10 mm to 14 mm. This is where the fraud and criminality really shine. To produce a 10 mm pearl, the Japanese pearl industry today will insert a shell bead of 10 mm, leave the oyster in the water for as little as 6 months, giving it sufficient time to secrete a layer of pearl nacre no thicker than 0.2 mm or 0.3 mm. That’s thicker than a human hair, but not by enough to matter. The result is that the large Japanese pearls sold today are less than 1% pearl. The necklaces of 10 mm and 12 mm pearls are merely costume jewelry worth only $200 or $300 at the most. Yet there are people who are still paying tens of thousands of dollars for them. This is insane. It is exactly the same as gold-plating an object and then pricing it as if it were made of solid gold.

 

To fully appreciate this fraud, one website made the following comments: [1] “think of a white marble covered with a single coat of clear nail varnish. It’ll look good when new – round, shiny and flawless. After a few months or so there’ll be chips in the varnish and soon whole areas will flake or peel off. That’s pretty much what can happen when the nacre covering a bead nucleated pearl is too thin. Thin nacre is almost certain be a disappointment with Japanese saltwater “Akoya” pearls (Chinese freshwater pearls are solid nacre).” Due partly to commercial pressures, but mostly due to greed, Japanese pearls are harvested much too early, with oysters remaining in sea water for as little as 6 months after nucleation, producing a nacre thickness that is often less than 0.2 mm.

 

The above diagram isn’t strictly accurate, but it does effectively illustrate the difference between a natural pearl and a “Japanese” cultured pearl today. Source.

 

This above illustration is not very accurate, but it displays a representation of a Japanese cultured pearl as it might have been 40 or 50 years ago. Source.

 

The Jewish dealers have created a kind of commercial oligarchy for pearls. An inherent part of this is the marketing and promotion for which Jews have become rightfully famous, but this talent and media control are used here for malicious purposes. It was for decades a deep secret that Japanese pearls were 99% shell and only perhaps 1% pearl, but when this truth began to escape confinement, the Hasbara propaganda experts went to work with a vengeance to invert reality, and it seems they are succeeding. The new “reality” of the famed “Japanese Akoya Pearls” being presented to the world is that it is normal for a pearl to contain only 1% pearl, being a microscopically-thin layer of nacre coating a large round piece of garbage. It is also presented as normal for people to pay tens of thousands of dollars for this rubbish. One Jewish website (Silverman) tells us, “According to the Cultured Pearl Information Center in New York, you should steer clear of pearls that have a nacre of less than 0.3 millimeters…” [2]

 

One serious problem with these so-called pearls is that the microscopic layer of nacre is easily abraded. Just the natural rubbing together of the pearls in a necklace, will quickly remove the nacre layer and expose the shell bead underneath. One expert told ABC News, “This is absurd.” “It will deteriorate into worthless shell beads because the pearl coating basically comes off.” [3]

 

The publicity for this pearl oligarchy is not only heavily politicised but consists of reams of misinformation coupled with huge outright lies. As I stated above, the Japanese have abandoned the entire seawater pearl market for diameters below 9 or 10 mm, mostly because the Chinese learned to produce pearls of very high quality at a small fraction of the cost in Japan. This means that all of the “Japanese” pearls below this size are today imported from China. The Jewish dealers high-grade their purchases, buying millions of the highest-quality Chinese seawater pearls, sticking a “Made in Japan” label on them, and selling them as “Japanese Akoya Pearls” at five to ten times the price you would pay in China for the identical item. This is enormously fraudulent because the entire marketing propaganda system is designed to create the impression in the public mind that Chinese pearls are much inferior in quality to those from Japan when in reality all those pearls of high quality originate in China and are falsely marketed as Japanese. Typical of the marketing propaganda, one Jewish website asks, “Which Akoyas are you willing to buy? Affordable Chinese pearls or the beautiful Japanese version?” [4]

 

The entire worldwide marketing machine, which is still in full force today, was carefully designed to create a brand for Japanese pearls that would be seen and accepted as the highest level of quality and ethics, comparable to LV, Chanel, Versace or Hermès. They succeeded, but inherent in this brand creation for Japan was the denigration and slander of everything Chinese. It is truly ironic that the Chinese pearls being so slandered for so many decades were actually the pearls being sold as high-quality Japanese products.

 

Japan is the world’s largest importer of Chinese Akoya pearls where they are processed and re-exported. A ‘Japanese Akoya Pearl Necklace’ will almost certainly contain a high proportion of Chinese Akoya pearls – you can’t tell the difference. [5] [M]any Japanese factories now import their smaller akoya requirements from neighboring China. The pearls are treated and strung in Japan so that they may still carry the mark ‘Product of Japan’. It has been reported that more than 80% of the pearls 7 mm and smaller have come from Chinese farms regardless of whether or not they are sold by Japanese suppliers as Japanese pearls. [6]

 

Edison Pearls

 

The following is a quotation taken from an excellent article on these pearls:

 

“Edison pearls are the brainchild of brother and sister Weijian Zhan and Weiyu Zhan. Their family has over 40 years’ experience in pearl farming. They spent three times more than the industry average budget on pearl farming research over the past 12 years and cultivated a new species of giant freshwater pearls with exotic colors & saltwater pearls’ quality. Most freshwater pearls are nucleated by tissue, but Edison cultured pearls are nucleated with beads, exactly as saltwater pearls. The beads are implanted into mussels, selected through genetic research, with a special technique – a secret that is guarded closely. Only one pearl is cultured in each mussel, allowing for a much larger sized pearl to grow inside the shell. They have a bright luster and come in vivid colors such as white, peach, pink, gold, metallic, plum, and aubergine-purple. Traditional freshwater pearls rarely produce pearls in such large sizes and so many unique natural colors with amazing luster. Edison Pearls are of high quality; high-grade Edison pearls are perfectly round. Their sizes vary but they can become almost three-quarters of an inch (18 mm), and they have a unique luster that can be compared with that of high-end saltwater pearls such as Tahitian pearls or South Sea pearls.” [7] [8]

 

These are a very high-quality pearl produced only in China. My understanding of the process is that Zhan has taken a different, better, and to my mind a much more honest approach, and uses small pearls as the nucleus to create pearls of larger diameter. For example, he might take 6 mm pearls, grind them to a perfectly spherical shape if necessary, then insert them into another oyster as the nucleus to produce 10 mm pearls. It’s true these pearls will consist of a contribution by two different oysters, but at least these pearls are 100% pearl. Keith Bradsher wrote an article on this in the New York Times [9] and, while what he wrote was true, his article was still dishonest because it suggests that this is some kind of watershed event and the first time China has been able to produce pearls of high quality. And that’s nonsense because China has been producing most of the world’s high-quality pearls for decades now and, as I’ve stated repeatedly above, almost all of the high-quality pearls sold as Japanese actually have been for decades produced in China.

 

A Bit of History

Mikimoto Kokichi

 

Credit for the development of the process to create cultured pearls is justifiably given to Mikimoto Kokichi of Japan, although events were not so simple as the history books describe them today. The historical record is clear that Mikimoto did most of his early development work in China, not in Japan, and that the species of oyster he used for his original work, the Pinctada Martensii, was brought to Japan from Beihai in Guangxi province, which is the center of Chinese seawater pearl production today. [10] Mikimoto worked for many years with Chinese researchers around the turn of the last century, and he also collaborated with researchers and scientists in Australia. As near as I can discern from the historical record, Mikimoto and Japan received the credit for the cultured pearl process largely due to a lack of interest in other countries. This is not to denigrate Mikimoto’s discovery, since it was likely only his persistence over many years that led to the creation and development of the cultured pearl industry.

 

Mikimoto again collaborated with the Chinese in the 1960s and 1970s, primarily because industrial pollution in Japanese waters at the time was killing the oysters, and Mikimoto was moving some of his production to China. He did the same with Australia, but again with limited success due to what again appears to have been a lack of interest. At the time, the Japanese were forced to harvest their pearls much too soon – while the oysters were still alive – with the resulting pearls being smaller, the layers of nacre thinner, and the overall quality substandard. Mikimoto’s collaboration and partnerships with the Chinese continued for decades and involved both seawater and freshwater pearls, but it was only in the late 1980s that the Chinese began taking the pearl industry more seriously and began developing their own processes and methods of cultivation.

 

It is true that China’s first efforts – in freshwater pearls – were not very satisfactory. Many of us can remember the so-called “Rice Krispie” pearls from China, named after a popular North American breakfast cereal. This first effort produced pearls that were ridiculously inexpensive, but unattractive and of low quality, and no one paid much attention at the time. China certainly was not seen as a threat to the Japanese pearl industry which was by then firmly established. But then, in the 1980s, the Chinese got serious about cultured pearl production, and made huge efforts and investments in research to improve the quality of their production – which was still mostly limited to freshwater pearls. At the beginning, these pearls were all tissue-nucleated and almost never spherical in shape, and therefore of limited value. But the Chinese appeared to deeply understand the mollusks and their pearl production processes, and began to cross-breed various species of oysters and other mollusks and eventually produced a hybrid species that could produce perfectly spherical pearls in large quantities, and with an infinite array of the most exquisite pastel colors. This was so successful that today there are no pearls produced anywhere in the world that can match the delicate and very beautiful colors of Chinese freshwater pearls. [11]

 

You can see in the composite photo above, the dramatic increase in quality of Chinese freshwater pearls. The left photo is typical of early production in the 1980s, while the right photo accurately displays the high quality of the spherical shape and the luster and colors of these same pearls today. Source.

 

The Chinese began culturing seawater Akoya pearls as early as the 1960’s, but had limited interest and success until the late 1980’s. The species of oyster used in the production of seawater pearls is the same in both China and Japan, so the pearls are essentially identical, the only variations being due to China’s warmer and less-polluted waters. At the beginning, Chinese seawater pearls were considered much inferior to those from Japan, but once the Chinese became serious about the cultivation of seawater Akoya pearls, the tables turned very quickly. Today, China produces Akoya pearls with a level of quality that rivals or exceeds those of Japan in every quality factor. [12]

 

To give you an idea of how drastically the pearl market has changed in the past few decades, in the early to mid-1990s, Japan had nearly 70% of the market for Akoya seawater pearls; today it holds only around 10%, and that share is diminishing each year. China is the largest producer of cultured pearls in the world, accounting for over 95% of the world’s total production. In 2010, China produced more than 1500 tonnes of freshwater cultured pearls and more than 20 tonnes of seawater Akoya pearls. Freshwater pearls are now almost exclusively produced in China, and seawater pearls appear to be going in the same direction.

 

A typical Chinese pearl farm. Source.

A Tapestry of Lies

 

This is a short list of the denigrating propaganda and misinformation still being spread today about Chinese pearls, and the outright lies being propagated about Japanese pearls.

 

Japanese farmers are more careful and professional with maintaining the quality and standards of the pearls. [13]

Japanese Akoya pearls are generally larger than Chinese saltwater pearls because of their strict selection of vigorous and strong oysters. [14]

The difference in the quality of Chinese and Japanese Akoyas is highly discernible. The latter type has a thicker nacre … [15]

Japanese pearls have higher luster and thicker nacre than Chinese Akoya pearls. [16]

Japanese Akoyas are more beautiful than Chinese products due to having a rich sheen and deep pinkish overtones. The deep luster is missing in most Akoyas coming from China. [17]

In the 1990s the Chinese produced commercial quality Akoya pearls, but that are still far below the quality standards of Japanese Akoya pearls. [18]

[W]hile the Chinese have been developing new techniques, they have experienced only limited success. [19]

If Akoya pearls are small in size [they] were probably produced in China. But if the pearls are beautiful and large, they [are] Japanese Akoya Pearls. [20]

It is always better to buy Japanese Akoya pearls. They have a thick nacre that gives a deep rich luster that is truly missing in Chinese Akoyas. [21]

Genuine Japanese Akoya pearls are much more expensive, often costing four times as much as their cheaper Chinese Akoya counterparts. Many customers buy cheap Chinese Akoya pearls at high prices. [22]

 

And More Frauds

Western pearl dealers eager to sell you “Japanese” pearls at inflated prices will almost universally provide you with a Certificate of Authenticity for a necklace, the certificate testifying to the Japanese origin, the quality of the pearls, and to the overall chastity of the necklace. But this is nonsense. All you need to do is think. A computer has a warranty that will be honored, because computers have serial numbers. If the serial number on the computer matches that on the warranty card, there will be no question as to its validity. But pearls don’t have serial numbers, and so there is no way to definitively allocate any certificate or guarantee to any particular pearl product. I can print a guarantee certificate and mate it to any one of thousands of pearls in my stock. There is no way to link any certificate or guarantee to any specific pearl necklace, which means the certificates are worthless – or at least worth no more than the word of the person selling the pearls. These certificates are fraudulent on another count, in that they do not actually tell you the true source of the pearls. They will claim the origin or the place of manufacture as “Japan”, but the wording will not tell you where the pearls were actually farmed. With pearls below 10 mm in size, the actual origin is almost certainly China.

 

It should also be noted that there exists quite a lot of misleading terminology in the world of pearls, most of it bordering on fraudulent statements. For two examples, there is no such thing as “investment-grade” pearls, and “gem-quality” is a meaningless term. Sellers using this terminology should be avoided. With around 2,000 tons of pearls being produced every year, pearls are not rare, and that means they are NOT an investment and will never appreciate in value. [23]

Three female Mikimoto pearl divers with buckets as they prepare to dive down 20ft. to bring up oysters.

That was many years ago. Today the oysters are lying on floating rafts so no more diving girls.

 

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Mr. Romanoff’s writinghas been translated into 32 languages and his articles posted on more than 150 foreign-language news and politics websites in more than 30 countries, as well as more than 100 English language platforms. Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He is one of the contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney’s new anthology ‘When China Sneezes’. (Chap. 2 — Dealing with Demons).

His full archive can be seen at

https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/  + https://www.moonofshanghai.com/

He can be contacted at: 2186604556@qq.com

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NOTES

[1] Buying Pearls – Tricks and Traps
https://thepearlmarket.co.uk/buying-pearls.htm

[2] 4 Things You Should Know About Buying Pearls
https://fsilverman.com/pearl-jewelry/4-things-you-should-know-about-buying-pearls/

[3] Why Some Pearl Necklaces May Not Last
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=126354&page=1

[4] Why Japanese Akoyas are Pricier than Chinese Akoya Pearls?
https://www.pearlclasp.com/blog/why-japanese-akoyas-are-pricier-than-chinese-akoya-pearls/

[5] Buying Pearls – Tricks and Traps
https://thepearlmarket.co.uk/buying-pearls.htm

[6] All About Pearls
https://www.gypsygirl.co.za/page/all-about-pearls

[7] Edison Pearls: Technological Breakthrough Making High-Quality Pearls Affordable
https://timelesspearl.com/blogs/learn-about-pearls/edison-pearls-technological-breakthrough-making-high-quality-pearls-affordable

[8] Discover the Unique History of Edison Pearls
https://www.timelesspearl.com/edison-pearls-unique-history/

[9] Pearls, Finer but Still Cheap, Flow From China
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/02/business/global/chinas-high-quality-pearls-enter-the-mass-market.html

[10] The difference between Chinese seawater pearls and Japanese seawater pearls
https://www.iglitterpearl.com/blog/the-difference-between-chinese-seawater-pearls-and-japanese-seawater-pearls/

[11] A Very Short History of Cultured Pearls
https://www.interweave.com/article/jewelry/cultured-pearls-short-history/

[12] A Very Short History of Cultured Pearls
https://www.interweave.com/article/jewelry/cultured-pearls-short-history/

[13] Why Japanese Akoyas are Pricier than Chinese Akoya Pearls?
https://www.pearlclasp.com/blog/why-japanese-akoyas-are-pricier-than-chinese-akoya-pearls/

[14] The difference between Chinese seawater pearls and Japanese seawater pearls
https://www.iglitterpearl.com/blog/the-difference-between-chinese-seawater-pearls-and-japanese-seawater-pearls/

[15] Why Japanese Akoyas are Pricier than Chinese Akoya Pearls?
https://www.pearlclasp.com/blog/why-japanese-akoyas-are-pricier-than-chinese-akoya-pearls/

[16] Japanese Akoya Pearls vs. Chinese Akoya Pearls
https://www.premiumpearl.com/guide-japanese-akoya-pearls.html

[17] Why Japanese Akoyas are Pricier than Chinese Akoya Pearls?
https://www.pearlclasp.com/blog/why-japanese-akoyas-are-pricier-than-chinese-akoya-pearls/

[18] Japanese Akoya Pearls vs. Chinese Akoya Pearls
https://www.premiumpearl.com/guide-japanese-akoya-pearls.html

[19] Japanese Akoya Pearls vs. Chinese Akoya Pearls
https://www.premiumpearl.com/guide-japanese-akoya-pearls.html

[20] Japanese Akoya Pearls vs. Chinese Akoya Pearls
https://www.premiumpearl.com/guide-japanese-akoya-pearls.html

[21] Japanese Akoya Pearls vs. Chinese Akoya Pearls
https://www.premiumpearl.com/guide-japanese-akoya-pearls.html

[22] Japanese Akoya Pearls vs. Chinese Akoya Pearls
https://www.premiumpearl.com/guide-japanese-akoya-pearls.html

[23] Buying Pearls – Tricks and Traps
https://thepearlmarket.co.uk/buying-pearls.htm

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