Part 12

First it should be remembered that the price of pearls is reckoned by the square of the weight, with the pearl-grain, 1/4 carat, as the unit. Given the price at $3.00 per grain base or multiple, a half grain pearl would be half of $3.00 or $1.50 per grain flat, or seventy-five cents for the pearl. At the same price a one grain pearl would be at $3.00 per grain multiple, $3.00 per grain flat and $3.00 for the pearl. Upon the same basis a two grain pearl would be twice three are six, $6.00 per grain flat and twice six are twelve, $12.00 for the pearl. Or it may be stated thus: multiply the grain number by itself and the product by the base price, as a 6 gr. pearl at $3.00 base, 6 × 6 = 36 × 3 = 108 dollars, the price of the pearl. This rule applies to all but rejections or those too poor for classification, and extraordinary pieces which by their extreme rarity pass beyond the governance of rules. The sign used in quoting a multiple price is a square. This placed after a price quoted means that it is the multiple price per grain, not the flat grain price.

The price of pearls has increased even more than that of diamonds in the last fifteen years. In common with many other things it has risen with the rapid increase of wealth and the tremendous additions to the world's stock of the standard or measure of values,—gold. Beyond this, the demand for pearls, owing to the adoption of them as a fashion in the United States where a large proportion of the world's wealth is being created, has been stimulated to such a degree that the price of them has advanced in a greater ratio to the depreciation of gold and other forms of wealth than most commodities.

Twenty years ago good round Indian pearls up to five grains could be bought for $1.50 base; to-day such pearls would cost $4.50 base and whereas in those days pieces of extraordinary luster were allowed to remain in the parcels and were sold at the same rate with the others, they are now culled from the lots and held for extraordinary prices. Size also now counts beyond the multiple of the square. The quality held at $4.50 base up to five grains costs $6.00 above that size, and at ten grains will bring $8.00 and over.

The yield of fine white pearls in sizes over ten grains is not large and as there has been and is a steady demand for large pearls for the centres of necklaces, sizes from ten to fifteen grains bring from eight to eleven dollars multiple when matched. Egg and pear-shaped pearls of the same grade, from five grains down, are worth twenty-five to thirty per cent. less than round pearls; between five and ten grains ten to fifteen per cent. less, and as they near fifteen grains and over the pear-shape become of equal value with the round.

Imperfections which can be hidden by the setting decrease the price twenty to thirty per cent., and there is about the same difference between button and round pearls, according to the size of the plane. The difference is still greater in the larger sizes. A yellow color reduces the value in the market from fifteen to fifty per cent. according to the depth and quality of the tint. The so-called blue pearls, which are of a dark leaden white, are worth about half as much as ordinary white, and about one-third the price of fine white Indians. These blue pearls must not be confounded with the deep gray, slate, or black pearls, included in the general term black pearls, as the latter frequently command fancy prices.

Salt-water pearls taken from the smaller varieties of the avicula of some seas, though of the same grade in the qualities of color, luster and shape, are nevertheless worth less than Indian pearls, because they lack a certain quality of texture which the latter, together with those of some other waters, possess to an eminent degree.

American fresh-water pearls have been and are lower in price than Orientals. They have however commanded much better prices of late than formerly and are increasing in value. At present they bring about one-third less than corresponding qualities from the seas. There is a greater difference in the price of baroques. Fine Venezuelan baroques from a half to seven or eight grains are worth now thirty-five to fifty cents base.

Some of these when mounted appear like round or pear-shape pearls and are in good demand. Larger pieces can rarely be made to appear other than baroque and do not therefore command as good figures. They seldom bring more than five dollars per grain flat, in sizes from ten to twenty grains. Fresh-water pearls likewise fetch better prices reckoned by the multiple in the smaller sizes, though they are usually quoted by the grain flat at five to twenty-five cents under ten grains, and twenty-five cents to three dollars per grain in larger sizes.

Iridescent, finely tinted, very lustrous, strawberry, and rose baroques of large size, are worth five dollars per grain and very exceptional pieces bring even more. Slugs, or ordinary baroques, are sold all the way from six dollars an ounce to ten cents per grain. Good wing-pearls can be bought at one to five cents per grain; small wings and rejections are sold by the ounce.

Perfectly round fresh-water pearls of good quality and even skin are rare and prices are advancing steadily. Good buttons have advanced fully twenty-five per cent. in the last year. Fine fancies such as were found at one time in the Sugar River, Wisconsin, since the fisheries there have been exhausted, are scarce and high.

The low prices paid by button manufacturers for mussel shells for the mother-of-pearl in them during the past year, has been one of the chief factors in reducing the quantity of pearls found and the consequent increase of price. It seldom pays the fisher to gather mussels for pearls only; it is the steady returns from the sale of the shells which ensures an adequate reward for his labors. Shells that once brought twenty dollars per ton fell during the early part of 1905 to a third of that amount and later went as low as two dollars and a half. They are now going up again.

Many pearls are seriously injured by the practice of fishers who rely upon the sale of the shells for their returns, of throwing the mussels into vats of hot water to open them. The pearls released from the shells fall to the bottom and getting too near the hot iron are killed, which means that the luster is partially or wholly destroyed.

Dredging is now quite common and is doing much to deplete the mussel-beds of the west. When one bed is completely divested of shells, the clammer moves on to another and repeats the process, so that the supply of fresh-water pearls is coming to depend on the constant discovery of new mussel-beds. Unless legislation regulates the industry the American supply will soon cease.

The cheapest fresh-water pearls in the market to-day are the finest. The pearlers along the streams of the west and south will no longer part with the pearls they find to the speculators at the old time prices. In fact they generally want much more than they are worth and often get more than the speculator can afford to pay to ensure a profit when he comes to sell them in the business centres.

But these fishers know little of the merits and value of the finer qualities. They do not yet realize the great difference in value which accrues as the pearl exceeds the average of luster, color, or perfection, consequently the speculator can often buy a very fine pearl for little more than he would have to pay for an ordinary pearl and though he knows that the piece is worth much more than he has paid, and tries to get as nearly what it is worth as he can, both his judgment and disposition to sell are affected by the low price he has paid and the chances are that he too in turn will sell it at much less than its relative value as compared with the ordinary market price of poor or medium quality goods.

This condition will gradually change. As in the past the fisher learned more and more of the market value of ordinary pearls, so also he will learn to know the price of exceptional pieces and to know them when he has them. Even now, speculators hold fine large pearls at high prices because of the ready sale for them in Europe.

It is difficult to compare the price of pearls in ancient times with that of to-day. We make much finer and closer assortments and gradations of quality and the business now is on a more distinctly commercial basis. People generally are better informed and more critical; they are not influenced by wonder, sentiment, superstition and the "Arabian Nights" atmosphere, as much as formerly.

The Orient is not as strange and far away as it was. In the old times, jewellers could and undoubtedly did take advantage of the awe with which things from the mysterious East were regarded, and of the general ignorance, to obtain large sums for very ordinary if not inferior gems. Even in these days, many are influenced more by the source from whence they come than by a critical knowledge of the gems they buy. Some, who would not buy the most beautiful fresh-water pearl, will pay an exorbitant price for one poorer and less valuable because it is oriental. La Pellegrina in the hands of an obscure dealer would be passed unnoticed by many who would be enraptured by a more ordinary gem from a jeweller or person of renown.

It is presumable therefore that prejudice was more influential when ignorance prevailed to a greater extent than now. John Spruce of Edinburgh in 1705 complained that he could not sell a necklace or pendant of fine Scotch pearls in Scotland. He says "the generality seek for oriental pearls because farther fetched," and continues: "At this very day I can show some of our own Scots pearls as fine, more hard and transparent than any oriental. It is true that the oriental can be easier matched, because they are all of a yellow water, yet foreigners covet Scots pearls."

The price in those days was regulated by general appearance and loosely with regard to weight, rather than by definite assortment and the exact system of reckoning by the multiple of the weight as now, for he says, "If a Scotch pearl be of a fine transparent color and perfectly round and of any great bigness, it may be worth 15 to 50 rix dollars, yea I have given 100 rix dollars (about $82.00 U. S.) for one."

In 1862, Scotch pearls sold for about seventy-five cents to ten or twelve dollars each, an extraordinary piece bringing occasionally as much as twenty-five dollars, but after they were brought to the favorable notice of persons of distinction and it was known that Queen Victoria had bought one for one hundred and ten dollars, the price of them quadrupled. In the time of Charles II. of England an Irish pearl weighing 144 grains was valued at two hundred dollars. In London during the early part of the nineteenth century, pearls from Panama of good size and quality brought about four dollars per grain.

About 1865, fine oriental pearls were sold in London for $1.25 to $1.50 per grain in sizes up to three grains. Over that the price increased gradually with the size so that five grainers were worth about $2.50 per grain; ten grainers, $5.50 per grain; twenty grainers $13.00 per grain and thirty grainers about $17.00 per grain. If their fine grade equalled ours, there has been a remarkable advance in the last forty years, as fine oriental round pearls of thirty grains to-day, are worth in the United States $240.00 per grain flat.

Up to this time and after, prices were quoted very generally by the carat. Later, the method of reckoning by the square or multiple became more general, and the price went to about two dollars per carat, in London, or fifty cents per grain base for ordinary sizes, the larger ones being valued by the piece according to the individual rarity and particular qualities, as before. At the Navigator's islands in 1858, fine round pearls of one to two grains were valued at about fifty cents per grain, the price increasing until those of twenty grains were considered worth twenty dollars per grain. Second class pearls under one grain, averaging half a grain, were sold for about five cents a grain. The same grade about nine grains average, were worth about sixty-five cents per grain.

A third and fourth grade brought about twenty-five and fifty per cent. less respectively. These prices, compared with those of London, indicate that fine, large, round pearls commanded better prices then in the East than they did in Europe. Seed pearls sold at Tahiti for ten to fifteen dollars per pound. The island of Labuan, a British possession in the East Indian archipelago, shipped pearls to Singapore in the sixties at an average price of ten to fifteen cents per grain. In 1871, 35 ounces of pearls shipped from Guayaquil were valued at $100.00 per ounce.

As in former times, at many places where the fishing is done by independent naked divers, especially among the remote islands of the South Sea, there is no grading of pearls or definite ideas of value. The natives dispose of their pearls, as they are able, to traders, often for a very small price. It is so to-day at many points in the Sulu archipelago from Mindanao to the Tawi Tawi islands. The smaller established fisheries of the seas east of China assort roughly and sell in bulk to buyers from neighboring trading centers.

The output of the large fisheries is practically controlled by the great merchants of neighboring cities who know the methods and intricacies peculiar to the localities. For instance, the pearls of Ceylon go to Madras, and Bombay handles the bulk of those from the Arabian coast and the Red Sea. Lower California pearls are marketed chiefly at La Paz. Those from Venezuela are shipped principally to Paris and definite figures cannot be obtained. A few are brought to the United States direct from Venezuela, chiefly by Syrians who barter for them with the independent divers. These traders have no knowledge of market rates for assorted goods but sell them in mixed lots for as much as they can get.

The price of pearls of the first grade, in Ceylon in 1904, weighing four grains and upwards each, was about $5.00 per grain. At Macassar, prices for the irregular shaped pearls of the Dutch Indies ranged from twenty-five cents to $1.25 per grain base according to quality.

At the Ceylon fisheries, two-thirds of the oysters taken have been the government's share. These were auctioned off daily. The prices varied considerably, not only from fishing to fishing, but daily during the season. If the oysters sold one day, yielded well, prices went up and vice versa. In 1860, at the beginning of the Tinnevelly fishery, they realized Rs 15. ($7.50) per thousand and rose later to Rs 40. ($20.00). In 1861 on the contrary they sold in the early part of the season for $35.00 to $40.00 and fell to $20.00, at one time touching $8.50.

In 1871, the Tuticorin catch brought a little over $40.00 per thousand average. The average price paid in 1858 at the Ceylon fisheries was a little less than ten dollars, and as the pearl yield was good, the speculators made enormous profits. In consequence, the average of 1859 went up to $22.50, the oysters bringing at one time during the season as much as $42.00; 1860 realized an average of $66.00, the highest price paid during the season being $90.00.

The fishery of 1863 though it realized more for the government on account of the large catch, brought an average of $33.50 per thousand only. In 1874 the oysters brought about $40.00 per thousand. Of late years the average has been less, ranging from $12.00 to $14.00 though at times double that price has been paid.

The pearls found in the oysters came quickly into the hands of Hindu merchants who assorted them and shipped a large part to Europe at prices much less than those which rule in the United States, though they usually made a good profit over cost. With the leasing of the Ceylon fisheries much of this speculative business will undoubtedly be eliminated and the pearls marketed at more regular prices.

At fisheries where mother-of-pearl is the chief factor of the industry, it is difficult to get statistics of the number or value of the pearls found, but in a general way India governs the market. Prices in other sections adjust themselves to Madras and Bombay with such modifications as quality and place would naturally make.

Mother-of-pearl shell varies in price from $250.00 to $500.00 per ton for Mexican to $700.00 to $800.00 per ton for the white shell of Australia and the South Sea.

IMITATION AND DOCTORED PEARLS

In common with all other precious things, pearls have been long imitated. The early method of making imitation or "mock-pearls" as they were called, was to cut them out of the mother-of-pearl and polish them. Another crude way was to make solid beads of glass containing various ingredients which gave them a slight similarity to the nacreous luster of the pearl. Beads of gypsum or alabaster were soaked in oil and coated with wax. The scales of the bleak fish dissolved in liquid ammonia or vinegar, was also used for covering beads, the solution imparting a somewhat pearly appearance.

To coat one thousand ounces of glass beads, a French manufacturer used three ounces of fish-scales, one ounce white wax, one ounce pulverized alabaster and half an ounce fine parchment glue. Another made beads of opal glass which he covered with several layers of isinglass; over this was laid another coating of a mixture of spirits of turpentine and copal, and a fat oil to exclude moisture from the isinglass, following it with a thin layer of tinted enamel to give resemblance to the orient of the pearl.

Some claimed that the best artificial pearls were made from pulverized pearls. Seed pearls or valueless baroques were ground to a fine powder, soaked in lemon-juice or vinegar and mixed with gum tragacanth. The paste after being shaped and partially dried, was then enclosed in a loaf and baked in an oven. The luster was obtained by a final coating of fish-scale solution. A lighter and better imitation was made by blowing hollow glass beads. The inside surface was covered with a preparation from the fish-scales, after which the bead was filled with wax. This method continues in use to-day.

The fish-scale solution used is a guanine, the mucus which lubricates the scales of the bleak fish (alburnus lucidus). The white scales of the fish are carefully scraped into a horse-hair sieve over a shallow tub of fresh water. The first water is thrown away. The scales are then washed and pressed. The mucus sinks to the bottom and is gathered as an oily mass, very brilliant and bluish-white. This is packed with ammonia in tin boxes and sealed for shipment. It takes about 20,000 fish to make one pound of the mucus.

A cheap imitation pearl is made of opal glass, a bluish-white milky appearing material, to which a pearly effect is given by treating it with fluoric acid. Imitation black pearls are made from hematite, but as they require careful finishing to hide the metallic luster and are much heavier than pearls, they are seldom used.

The Chinese and Japanese have been much more ingenious in their methods and have long produced, with enforced aid from the animal, imitations which are in part real pearl. The former insert in the Chinese pearl-mussel (anodonta herculea) small figures of Buddha upon which the fish proceeds to deposit its nacre. When they are coated, which occurs in from one to two or three years, the pearly figures are extracted and sold to the devout.

The Japanese do more. They attempt to produce a marketable gem and have so far succeeded that a considerable number have been sold of late in the United States and in many cases the public buy them not knowing that they are an artificial production. The base upon which the nacre is deposited appears to be composed of a substance resembling porcelain shaped like a low dome hollowed out on the under side and having a hole in the centre of the cavity.

As there is no nacre on the under side, it must, when the button is placed in the mussel, be thereby protected from the action of the fish except at the edges where the nacreous deposit probably joins it to the shell but in such a manner that it can be easily detached. The pearl covered button is then fitted to a piece of polished mother-of-pearl of the same exterior size and shape and the two are neatly joined, forming a double low domed piece of pearl on one side, and mother-of-pearl on the other. These Japanese pearls as they are called, when mounted in a setting constructed to hide the under side, have the appearance of imperfect spheres of natural pearl.

The beds where the culture of these artificial pearls is carried on, are situated in the Bay of Ago, a few miles south of the Temple of Ise, in central Japan on the Pacific side. It is a quiet piece of water, in a coast broken by numerous inlets and coves. A little north of the centre of the bay is a small island called Tadoko where the necessary buildings and the men connected with the industry are. Around the island and near it, about 1,000 acres of sea bottom are leased and used for the pearl oyster cultivation. The water is about five to seven fathoms deep.

The oyster used is the one common to the waters of Japan, the Avicula martensii Dunker. In May and June, stones weighing six to eight pounds are scattered over the bottom of the sheltered shallows which run up into the land, where the spat is collected. The breeding season is in July to August and in the latter month very tiny shells attached to the stones by the byssus may be seen already.

The number increases as the season advances until in November, in order to protect the young fish from the approaching winter cold, the stones lying in very shallow water are removed with the adhering oysters to deeper water—over six feet. After three years the oysters are taken out and the nuclei of the culture pearl inserted. This done, they are spread over the sea bottom, about one to every square foot and left undisturbed for four years. They are then taken out and opened and both the culture pearls and whatever natural pearls there may be, are harvested. At present, upwards of a quarter of a million oysters are treated annually.

Experiments are being made constantly, in the United States and Europe, to improve upon the hollow glass bead lined with fish-scale but so far without success. The finest of these imitate the natural pearl very well and if finely mounted similar to the genuine, will deceive many while worn. Closer observation will reveal the glassy shine of the surface and it will be found under the loup to contain numerous small holes. The specific gravity is also less.

One finds occasionally in lots, a mock-pearl which has been cut and polished from the mother-of-pearl, but imitations of this character are scarce and find no place in the market. The few made are found usually in parcels of fresh-water pearls and are put there by unscrupulous dealers, as also are hematite balls and even buckshot, to be sold with the lot by weight as genuine pearls.

Since the price of pearls has advanced so rapidly, much ingenuity has been shown in the improvement of poor pearls. Button pearls grown to the shell are broken out and the under or flat side carefully scraped and smoothed to hide the irregular lines of juncture between the pearl and the shell. Protuberances on the surface of round pearls are scraped off and the broken skin edges smoothed down so as to be unnoticeable to the naked eye.