Tahiti: paradise found aboard the sail-cruisers of Windstar - Cruise of the Month - Product/Service Evaluation

Cruise Travel, May-June, 2003 by Jim Kerr

Luster, iridescence, and surface blemishes determine price, but so does size, color, shape, and unique matches of two or more pearls. As you go from shop to shop, you see a wide variety of pearls, some sold individually and others set in jewelry, especially rings, pendants, and earrings. "Keshi" pearls, pure mother of pearl without a nucleus, are made into less expensive but handsome bracelets and earrings, while "mabe," an intentionally inserted mold that gets covered in mother of pearl, then cut away, is made into pendants, brooches, earrings, and cufflinks.

The smallest pearls harvested from pinctada margaritifera (black-lipped oyster) are about eight millimeters in diameter, but most are 10 or 11 millimeters. You can pay from 40 to thousands of dollars for a single black pearl, but after browsing the shops and seeing the differences for yourself, you will be more inclined to spend several hundred for a pendant and matching earrings. You can take consolation in knowing that the markup on black pearls in the U.S. market is at least 100 percent.

--Jim Kerr