I Finally I have the data from this year’s pearl harvest and it is a positive report but not a spectacular one. As it has happened for several ongoing years, environmental changes -possibly caused by global warming and other natural processes- have directly affected the outcome of our pearl harvest. This year was no exception since 4 years ago we had a very poor “spat collecting” season of "Rainbow Lipped Pearl Oysters" (Pteria sterna), which did not allow us to have an adequate amount of mature (2 year old) pearl oysters to “nucleate” or “implant” two years ago (2009) and the amount of pearls we obtained was of only 1.7 kg when our goal is to reach 4 kilos (roughly: 4,000 pearls)
However, the number of nucleated oysters would have given us only 1 kilo of pearls this year, but thanks to improvements in our nucleation technique we were able to achieve a 70% higher amount of pearls, and the colors and quality of the pearls were truly good. I will now proceed to to review each type of pearl produced this year in our Bacochibampo Bay Pearl Farm… We harvested 1,783 cultured pearls with an average size of 9.0 mm (in diameter), the smaller size of the pearls was 8.3 mm and was larger at 12.9 mm. The predominant shapes were baroque (asymmetrical), followed by semi-baroque pearls (symmetric) and with a small minority (2%) of round and near-round shapes. In the next photo we can see the two plastic bags on which the entire 2011 crop is placed until the time comes for its separation by size, shape and quality (pearl grading). I proceeded to "liberate" the pearls to appreciate their shapes, colors and sizes… And these from bag # 2… I also “cherry picked” some pearls that had something that made them all the more strikingly beautiful or unusual and these are some pictures of these pearls: However, these are not the only beautiful pearls, their colors are just much more intense, but these are other rare gems: Now for the next sub-topic within the crop: the production of Mabe Pearls or “Half-Pearls”. This kind of pearl is “harvested” (extracted) from the shell of the oysters and -unlike loose pearls- they must be processed before being sold. In fact, this entire process is quite elaborate and I want to explain it in detail in a future Blog entry. I hope I can do this by September, as I am preparing a video of the process as well. Since I am going to explain this in the near future, I will avoid going into much detail, but each pearl oyster has the potential to produce up to 3 Mabe(some rare ones up to 4), but we consider that only 50% of the extracted Mabe pearls will have the right quality to become a "Cortez Mabe"; what about the remaining pearls?… they will visit the mermaids (cast into the water’s depths). Why? Because we will simply not sell "junk pearls" to our customers and our pearls are guaranteed for life: we just don’t want people coming back to exchange a defective product, we want them to come back for more beautiful & enduring gems. How many Mabe pearls did we harvest this year? According to harvest data we obtained 6,158 “raw” (or “in the shell”) pearls… from which we will further inspect and will end up with only 3,000 pieces of varying qualities: from "B" to "AAA" grades, and possibly some 6 “U” grade Mabe pearls. Once mounted in jewelry, mabe pearls take on a completely different look … The natural pearl harvest this year was quite low, barely reaching 3 pearls with a size of at least 5 mm in diameter. This is a good number, considering that the norm in nature is of just 1 such natural pearl per every 10,000 pearl oysters. Keshi pearls -a type of cultured pearl- were also very scarce, with an output of just 33 grams. I hereby terminate this report of the Cortez Pearl Harvest of 2011. The next blog post will be up by mid-September and will have information about the third edition of the "Pearl Ruckus" organized by Jeremy Shepperd (of “Pearl-Paradise.com” fame) which took place in Hollywood, California. Cultured Pearls
These are from bag # 1… 
Mabe Pearl
Keshi Pearls and Natural Pearls
Until next time!
There are few moments as exciting to a Pearl Farmer as that of the time to harvest his pearls. This means the culmination of 4 years of taking care of your pearl oysters, years of worries caused by natural phenomena (the "Niño" and "Niña" years, as well as from hurricanes and tropical storms) or human causes. It is at this moment when we can take a deep breath and feel our pressure lowering in relief, only to be replaced by heavy-breathing and an increased heart-rate, but this time caused by the hope of finding that pearl that John Steinbeck referred to as the "Pearl of the World", as described in his novel “The Pearl”, that huge, beautiful & flawless pearl that Kino finds after years of pearl fishing.
And apparently, we are not alone in expecting such a yearly precious event –since it only takes place during the month of June- because this year we were truly honored to be visited by the great German gemologist Elisabeth Strack, author of a book that is considered –by most- as "The Bible of Pearls”, a book for all lovers of this amazing organic gem: "Perlen" (in German) or "Pearls" (in English). Unfortunately there are no editions in other languages, but this is an awesome book that has a great quantity and quality of information about all types of pearls.
And, at this point I don’t know if I can say if you do not say whether Elisabeth had bad or good luck -it will depend on her personal opinion- during her second visit to our pearl farm, because she arrived on the first day of June, and at that time we also had the visit of Mexico’s President, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, in Guaymas; this due to the fact we were also celebrating the “Day of the Navy”, so she had the chance to see a whole array of sailors, armored vehicles, navy helicopters and warships in Guaymas. Regardless of her opinion, she did bring us "good luck", as this year’s pearl harvest seems as it will become the best of our history, at least in color and beauty of the harvested pearls.
The Motives
Elisabeth Strack visited us because she has been working on her book’s second edition, and updated data and information is much required and this cannot be gathered just by hearsay. When at the first day of harvest with us, she noticed that some of the colors on our pearls just seemed to be impossible: because she just could not believe some of the colors she was seeing… even when she saw the pearls just coming out of our pearl oysters. And I assume that is a normal reaction for people who have seen pearl harvests in other types of pearl oysters, such as those from the Pinctada genus, or from pearly-mussels (Family Unionidae), but this was her first time watching cultured and natural pearls come out from our "Rainbow Lipped Pearl Oyster” (Pteria sterna). This incredible color saturation is observed even in the shells of this year’s oysters.
Cortez Pearl Harvest 2011
And I was wondering if you’ve seen how pearls are harvested here in Guaymas? We have several videos available on YouTube, but this is probably my favorite from the 2009 harvest:
And mentioned that Elisabeth was amazed with the natural colors of our pearls as it is rare to find such a variety of colors on a single crop in just one location. The "black pearl" of French Polynesia are mainly dark, but each atoll can produce a certain range of colors. Here in Guaymas we have been blessed with every imaginable body-color and overtones on our pearls. And as a sampler we have some photos…
On the photo above, a beautiful dark purple pearl, with three pearl behind it: one green, a “red” one and a blue colored one.
A couple more photos, now one with our so called “Yori” or “white pearls”, always displaying green and pink overtones.
And I must make it very clear that the pearls came out with the colors you are seeing, they were not processed in any way: not polished (to improve their luster or "make them shiny"), there were not "bleached" chemically to make them white, nor stained/dyed to darken them. They are simply the result of an amazing natural pigmentation process.
These pearls belong to the group of “Green” pearls, but our “green pearls” are very different from the typical Tahitian "green” pearl because Cortez Pearls tend to be brighter, not the “dark-black” color. Our greens also mix with other colors, making them uniquely different.
These last pearls have a reddish body color (violet) with green overtones, leaning towards the “Peacock” color of Tahitian Pearls but not exactly…they are also unique. It seems that this year this Red color will be rather generous. The "red pearls" or "Cranberry” are incredibly rare, so most of those seen for sale have an artificial color (and you can tell it is), but here in Guaymas we are fortunate enough to produce a dozen or so with this “cranberry” color per year.
Additional Notes
And Elisabeth returned to Germany, but before she did she also updated her knowledge on Authentic Mexican-Sonoran Food (unlike the variety they serve in Germany), allowing her taste buds to indulge in the sinful dishes served at our favorite restaurant ("Los Arbolitos de Cajeme"): a “tower” of fresh sea-scallops, fresh tomatoes and avocado slices with some spicy olive-oil dressing, shrimp and smoked-marlin “Toritos” (Banana Peppers filled with these delicacies), a fresh crab meat “tostada”, a savory seafood “machaca” (made with finely minced squid, shrimp and scallops) and an extravagant fish fillet covered with a hot cactus, onion and pepper topping… I surely hope that Elisabeth will have additional reasons to return next year to Guaymas.
I hope this entry about the 2011 Cortez Pearl harvest was of interest to you. I will eventually write-up this year’s harvest’s full information (quantity of harvested pearls, size of harvested pearls, shapes, colors, qualities, etc.) since we still have 30% of the harvest yet to reap and we are still hopeful, as we are every year, to find the "Pearl of the World .
Until next time…
A couple of weeks ago I had the chance to review CIBJO‘s new Pearl book (also known as the “Blue Book”). For those not familiar with this “famous” book or who CIBJO is, let me present this information in a simple way: CIBJO is an international confederation of national jewelery trade organizations, and amongst the many services they provide the offer guidance (guidelines) on how to refer to when you sell or market a product that falls into their umbrella: mainly gems and jewelery. Stated in another way, a jeweler might use these CIBJO guidelines to sell his products in the most honest/honorable way possible. It can also be used by the client to demand more information on the product of interest. Unfortunately, the most common issue is that both client and vendor are unaware of this valuable source of information, or what is worse: that the jeweler/seller exploits the ignorance of the customer to achieve a fraudulent sale.
The fraudulent sale of gems of all kinds, diamonds, rubies, emeralds and pearls, is more common in developing countries, and this is partly due to low awareness among the general population about the characteristics and attributes of gemstones which they seek to acquire. To this we add the greed factor of many and/or their total ignorance and/or the fact that they too were “ripped off” and so we end up inside a great well of unease and distrust. Not one, nor two … but dozens of times we have witnessed some deception and fraud in jewelry sales, and for us -pearl producers and jewelry makers- this issue becomes more sensitive in cases involving pearls.
For this reason, and to celebrate the publication of the new CIBJO-Blue Book: Pearls (this link allows you to download the PDF file directly from CIBJO) we will discuss about the various “myths” that allow for the deception and fraud in the purchase or acquisition of pearl jewelry. We hope that this series will indulge to your liking… even to your dislike (some will end up with a terrible feeling after reading these series of articles), but my hope is that this will help you to avoid a terrible mistake or being cheated and deceived. So, let’s start with this series of “myths” …
Myth # 1: “Majorca Pearls”
This is probably the most common myth or fraud of which we are known. How many times have we had a visit from a proud owner of a double-string necklace of “Majorca Pearls”? Countless times. How many times have we been told how when they visited the island of Mallorca, Spain, they even had a chance of visiting the “pearl farm” and could see how the oysters were stripped of their beautiful “pearls”? Again: countless … and how many times have we had to repeat that “Mallorca pearls” are just false, simulated or imitation pearls or -isn’t French just great at making things sound so romantic?- “Faux Perles“? Untold times. In fact, my favorite phrase is: “The only part of a ‘Majorca Pearl’ that is truly Pearl can be found in its trade name” (McLaurin dixit).
But hey! Don’t take my word for it, but instead… use the CIBJO Pearl Book and just go to page # 6 in paragraph 4.4.4 entitled “Imitation or Simulated”, and it unmistakeably identifies them as fake pearls. There, clearly mentioned, are the brand names of the most common imitation pearls, and it states how you may not use these to deceive a customer and -in this particular case- they HAVE TO BE described as follows: “Imitation Majorica Pearls”. So we have have an international authority that confirms that these famous “pearls” are simply … imitations. And this in itself is no problem unless you are told that if they are either natural or cultured pearls: then it is FRAUD.
How could the problem have started? In most cases -such as in department stores- the person in charge of selling the items does not have the foggiest idea of what they are actually selling: they have been equally trained to sell diapers and jewelry -in the best parrot-like way- but they have been told what to say from others that don’t know a thing about pearls. But this does not exempt them from fraud … and it does not matter if the jewelry item (be it a necklace or bracelet or earrings) came with a certificate of authenticity: a review of its text will inform you that they are not real pearls, but most of the time it will employ such verbiage “semi-cultivated pearls” or “Made using Marine materials”. This will be discussed in more detail in the coming weeks.
Akoya Pearl vs. Faux Perle