Pearl Mussels Hit Once Again

Maybe its the economy, maybe it is for the thrill, or maybe it is just damn greed that drives the mussel poachers of Scotland. The scoundrels are driving the native species closer and closer to the edge, killing thousands of mussels for want of a single, small pearl.

Scottish freshwater pearls have a long, famous history. They are some of the rarest pearls on the planet and only two jewelers in all of Scotland are even licensed to sell these gems. But that does not stop the Wallace-like plunder of the famous freshwater pearl-mussel beds in the land of scotch and honey.

It is not just the poaching that is threatening the population, pollution and falling wild-salmon stock is also playing a part; polluted water is deadly to the mussels, and the mussel glochidia attach to the gills of salmon like the Chinese FW glochidia attach to the glass carp. But leave it to a couple of greedy assholes to help to play Grim Reaper on the dwindling stock.

A New Pet Peeve

- Shitty Pearl Press Releases

Those of you who follow this blog know there are a couple of things that tend to chap my hide. So far I have written about several of them including:

1. Incompetent appraisers
2. Fraud on eBay
3. Poorly researched articles

Well I am adding one more pet peeve to my list today – shitty pearl press releases. I am not talking about the press releases that are hyping a product line or a new Web site. Those I don’t mind as long as they are well-written. I am talking about the releases filled with typos, poor spelling and poor grammar.

Google Alerts has been one of my best friends in writing this blog. I get an alert sent to my inbox every time a piece of news pops up on the Internet about pearls and players in the industry. But that means I get notified every time some two-bit pearl operation puts out a press release too.

Now some may accuse me of not being a perfect writer either. Hell, I don’t claim to be. But if I were to post a press release to the wires advertising pearls for sale, I sure as hell would hire a copywriter to make it look professional.

So in order to find the good stuff to write about, I end up having to read about “the world’s largest consumed jewelry” (ever eat a pearl?), a company calling all their past customers “old” (a better choice of wording may be in order there, and don’t even get me started on the grammar, punctuation and content!), and personal wearing.

Well folks, thanks for letting me bleat. I guess this post really isn’t about pearls. But hopefully it will do something to stem the tide of shitty, pearl-company press releases.

GIE the Undead

Last month, the GIE Perles de Tahiti was officially declared defunct. Now though, like a phoenix rising from its ashes, and with the Conseil d'Etat (State Counsil) in Paris annulling the local law that allowed the French Polynesian Assembly to do away with the pearl export tax last August, four Tahitian cultured pearl associations are clamoring to regroup into a new professional organization. Buried in the phoenix's ashes, the GIE Perles de Tahiti remains, but Robert Wan, Philippe Chenne, Georges Mataoa and Elisabeth Moe, who were all part of the former GIE Perles de Tahiti, are now part of the new endeavor.

"The aim is to pool resources and actions to better defend the interests of all pearl producers, to better market and promote a quality product at the international level," according to the famous four. Where have we heard that before? Oh yes, 15 years ago when the GIE Perles de Tahiti was instigated.

Wait! Mr. Effisk just reported that it seems the buried GIE Perles de Tahiti has begun smoldering and trying to rise up from its ashes too! All it needs is for the flame to be fanned with some money – a bit of that money that was lost during October when the export tax was rescinded and exports jumped 84 percent. Then, Tahiti will not only be the land of the luxurious black pearl but also the land of the tax collecting undead.

Luxury Fatigue and the Nouveau Pauvre

Submitted by Olga Noitapitsnokovna

When will luxury goods consumers stop following marketing trends, learn to trust their own style and start to think a little more about global environmental degradation? When will the logo-coveting crowd tire of keeping up with what ditzy Hollywood celebrities are sporting at the moment---and every bag, jewel, perfume and shoe put out by big luxury goods companies? When will the sheeple become people again?

Maybe today's luxury items are not quite so luxurious anymore. In fact, it may just be the complete opposite. There is an ever nagging reality that the luxury-shopping masses are now slowly waking up to; that mainstream luxury goods, in most cases, are not the special or unique products they were told they were; that these assertively marketed luxury goods so high in cost, are not a guarantee of any fine workmanship; that owning one of these logo-conspicuous luxury goods does not really convey any special status; that the consumption of these luxury goods does nothing to help our ailing planet or add to our personal happiness.

A long time ago, luxury goods meant dedicated artisans selling their exclusive, impeccably-made and timeless wares in small workshops. Now, that has been replaced by publicly traded mega-brand-name-logo-bearing-powerhouses selling their stuff in mega-quantities worldwide. It's all about marketing and profit margins. What does a logo reflect about one of these companies anymore? Yes, You Dumb Wannabe: We Want Your Money! Buy this product and you will automatically seem rich, elegant and good-looking! Wear an enormous 22-mm, perfectly round cultured South Sea pearl necklace, and it too will suddenly make you a willowy, shiny haired, pouty lipped and rich(looking) femme fatale. In most cases, the inference suggested by brand name marketing is even more ridiculous. You say that you can't possibly be dumb enough to fall for it. But you can! We are all quite dumb enough. A luxury goods company knows this and that is how it makes its money. Call a hamburger slathered in chive and caper mayonnaise "Hambourgeois a la Monseigneur Gatineau" and it suddenly becomes a high priced entree at a posh Quebec City French restaurant.

How to show off then, in this new(forced) debuting age of reason and financial portfolio nosedives? The "acquired knowledge" the luxury-shopping masses have armed themselves with should be the new status! We want good reasons to spend our hard earned cash! We no longer want to be the blind and irresponsible luxury-goods-consuming-dummies of yore. The newest trend to hit the Nouveau Riche--- is becoming an educated Nouveau Pauvre! The future should have us actively using our intellects to revel in new-found appreciation of nature and a few very fine things who's production doesn't contribute in the world's oceans turning into diluted vinegar. Yikes! That will eat away at a superyacht's exterior finish in no time.

Rearranging the Deck Chairs

Sumbitted by Bafoon

Several items have come in conjunction of late which have pixilated me.

One is the World Pearl Forum scheduled for mid-February in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. This ill-timed convocation is assembling the likes of Nick Paspaley and Robert Wan et Cie to tell adoring sycophants how the cow ate the cabbage (for the umpteenth time) under the guise “to create a lustrous new future for pearls.”

What lustrous future? The pearl industry is in the tank. And shall continue to be so, and for quite some period to come.

Another speaker is Hedda Schupak, Editor in Chief of JCK magazine, who is scheduled to prattle on about “media focus on pearls.” Why? JCK does precious little coverage on pearls. In fact, Modern Jeweler seems to be a little more regular in promoting of these goods... and, besides, in her career this E-in-C has never spearheaded any such inquiries into pearls; Gary Roskin is the editor who is the point man in all such efforts, and when he gets the rare chance, he does a credible job. I guess, as in any other pyramidal bureaucracy, the top dog gets the freebies, and gets to make the first self-choice as to who luxuriates from a sheikdom’s largesse.

And why an American trade magazine? The media here are notoriously skin-flinty about expending even minuscule baksheesh to cover the pearl industry, and are reluctant to take away even a few columnar inches from hordes of diamond and color stone advertising to promote pearls. Only Jewellery News Asia covers the pearl industry in any depth, and with any panache (anyhow, Dubai is easier to get to from Hong Kong than from the eastern U.S.; they should have been the ones invited).

Another speaker is a travel media dude who will pontificate on “what the luxury customer is looking for in today’s market.” This may well be the shortest speech in recorded history,as the luxury customer is obviously looking for luxury. Geeze! You want me to spend thousands of dollars to come hear that twaddle?

You may also sit transfixed while listening to another speaker talk about “experiential marketing” (whatever that may be), and yet another on positioning pearls via celebrity placement. Like I want to know more about Hollywood or French Riviera bimboes in heated décolletage contests, wearing baubles for mere seconds of fleeting and soon-to-be-forgotten publicity for both donor and donee.

I’ve discussed the ludicrous timing of this venue with longtime friend of mine, 40-years in the pearl trade in Asia and the Pacific, and he, too, thinks this event unneeded and ill-conceived, not to mention extravagant (costs amount up to US$10,000 to even get there and back, plus some US$3,000-to-US$7,000 a night at the host mega-hostel, plus US$400 entrance fee). He notes that in going there to luxuriate in wretched excess during these perilous pearling times, it is akin to “dancing to the tunes of the orchestra on the deck of the sinking Titanic.”

So recently came the notice that GIA has wisely postponed its Second Gemological Research Conference this coming August for a full year due to “the serious downturn in the global economy.” Don’t you think the sheiks and sheikettes who conceived this Dubai venture would have the good sense to likewise quash their bash?

Obviously not. If they didn’t even have the good sense to package air travel and hotel accommodations for potential attendees in the first place, they certainly won’t have the cojones to call it off. They probably don’t even care, feeling that there is no way their party in the high-rise, oil-dollar mega-castles in the sand can possibly turn into the Dubai Debacle, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”