Pearls and Oil

Of late, we’ve heard the constant news ramblings of the devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the disastrous effects this has had on the livelihood of those living on the gulf coast of the USA. One must also not forget the loss of stock value of BP, which affects thousands of shareholders and retirees around the world. Whilst this spill has little to no impact on the pearl industry due to locality, this is not the only spill affecting the world today.

Whilst drilling a second well on the Montara offshore oil platform in the Timor Sea off Western Australia on August 21st, 2009, the oil platform blew out, spewing natural gas, condensate and oil into the sea. Much like the plans in the gulf, relief wells were the ultimate solution, which took nearly eight weeks to complete.

This spill, widely ignored by and underreported by the global media, dealt a near-crippling blow to many fishing and pearling operations in several districts of Indonesia. A Mr Mustafa, chairman of a local guild of traditional Timor Sea fisherman, reported that by only September, 6,000 pearl oysters had perished at a loss of 6 billion Rp – another blow to the beleaguered Indonesian industry.

As humanity continues to thirst for the intoxication and addicting, rotting remains of civilisations past, the planet will continue to pay the price.

Keshi: Part Two

Following up on the previous blog about the term keshi, I was made aware that the Director of the Swiss Gemmological Institute (SSEF), Dr. Michael S. Krzemnicki, recently announced that his institute has been receiving large quantities of saltwater pearls for certification in recent weeks.

These pearls are generally characterized by an almost perfect appearance. The pearls are often accompanied with reports describing them as natural pearls, but their appearance has raised doubt amongst many natural pearl dealers.

These pearls were tested with the most advanced forms of technology, including X-ray radiography, X-ray luminescence, X-ray microtomography and radiocarbon age dating, and many were actually identified as beadless cultured pearls. Although these beadless cultured pearls do not show one distinct feature that explicitly characterizes them as cultured, it is a combination of internal and external structures, which enable conclusive identification of this material.

The arrival of large quantities of these “new” saltwater pearls, whose quality is far better than that of many natural pearls treasured since centuries, represents a great danger to the natural pearl market. Following the sudden increase of this material on the market, the SSEF has taken a number of measures to protect the natural pearl trade. The SSEF has adapted its pearl certification policy and is collaboratively promoting transparent standards at an international level. A important step is the use of more rigorous and specified definitions for natural and cultured pearls. A natural pearl is a pearl which formed in a wild oyster (mussel) which is living in its natural habitat. It formed without any human intervention. Any pearl stemming from a pearl cultivation farm is a cultured pearl.

This, then, does more than merely beg for the pearl industry to start taking immediate enforcement steps against the miscreants who blatantly choose to mislead the public by deliberately misconstruing their products in a variety of false manners. There is ample enough deception afoot in the business to warrant a single, overseeing and policing entity to enforce compliance with stringent procedures to ensure complete transparency and honesty throughout pearldom. After all, if diamonds and coloured stones can do it, why can’t we?

Keshi: Part One

The term keshi has been getting some bad press of late. In a recent article for Bo Torrey’s Pearl World, Renee Newman writes about misuse of the term:

Is “Keshi” Becoming a Meaningless Term?

Last February, CIBJO (the World Jewellery Confederation) announced a new definition for “keshi”—a non-beaded cultured pearl formed accidentally or intentionally by human intervention in marine pearl oysters such as the akoya oyster, silver/gold-lipped oyster, black-lipped oyster and freshwater molluscs. This change means that any cultured pearl without a nucleus is a keshi. In other words, the majority of freshwater pearls can now be identified as keshis because most do not have a bead nucleus. Depending on one’s definition of “bead,” pearls nucleated with mud or plastic may also be called keshi. Many large petal-shaped freshwater pearls have a flexible nucleus made of plastic sheeting. Fuji Voll of Pacific Pearls calls them lightweight coin pearls, but some vendors are selling them as keshis.

Chien Lin, president of Inter World Trading, told me that the term “keshi” was initially used in Japan to refer to natural seed pearls found when harvesting wild akoya oysters. Since the tiny natural pearls resembled poppy seeds, they were called keshi, which means “poppy” in Japanese. Lin learned this from the old-generation pearl traders he met while growing up in the pearl industry in Kobe, and he has verified this usage of “keshi” with a specialist at the Mikimoto Pearl Museum in Japan. Over time, the word became much more broadly used internationally.

After the Japanese started culturing akoya pearls, the term “keshi” was also used for the by-products of akoya cultivation that did not contain a bead nucleus. Akoya keshi pearls can range from small “seed-sized” to skinny pearls as long as 14 mm.

The term became more confusing when freshwater pearls and South Sea pearls from the silver- and black-lipped oysters entered the market. Keshi from South Sea pearl oysters are generally much larger in size than akoya pearls because of the size of the mother of pearl and speed of the nacre formation.

To add another element of confusion to the term “keshi,” petal shaped Chinese “reborn” freshwater pearls (Zai Sheng Zhu in Mandarin) came into the picture. If first-harvest pearls are carefully removed so as not to kill the mussel, “reborn pearls” can form spontaneously in the pearl sacs after the first harvest. “Reborn pearls” are also identified as second generation pearls or keshi.

Chien Lin has referred to these reborn pearls as “keshi-type cultured freshwater pearls” because they are not accidental byproducts of pearl culturing; they are intentionally produced by pearl farmers without inserting a tissue graft. Other freshwater dealers, however, have preferred to call them keshis and lobbied CIBJO to change the meaning of the term to include any non-bead nucleated freshwater pearl. They wanted the same nomenclature rights as saltwater dealers. Consequently, keshis are no longer special pearls since any cultured beadless pearl can be called a keshi now, according to CIBJO guidelines. This is confusing to people who have learned other definitions of “keshi.” The GIA avoids confusion by simply identifying keshis as cultured pearls on their lab documents.

I think it’s best to select terms that describe the outer appearance pearls rather than their nucleus or lack of nucleus. For example, “petal pearl” is more meaningful than “keshi,” which can have any type of shape, size, color, quality or origin. In addition, dealers who assign terms based on the outer appearance of a pearl cannot be accused of misrepresenting their merchandise. It’s not practical or cost effective to slice freshwater pearls or x-ray them to determine if they have a nucleus or not, but that’s what you have to do nowadays to positively identify the presence and type of nucleus. Pearls with plastic nuclei can be easily mistaken for non-nucleated pearls because of their low weight and similar shapes. Such mistakes can be avoided by concentrating on the obvious visual attributes of pearls. In other words, instead of being concerned about the presence of a nucleus in a cultured pearl, it’s better to focus on its uniqueness and beauty.

There’s more upcoming on this term. Stay tuned.