Black pearl producer to commercialise gem

http://www.financialexpress.com/

NEW DELHI, JULY 4:
A self-taught Indian scientist who has produced the world's largest black pearl is looking to commercialise his pearl culture technique that has the potential to change the profile of the country's gem and jewellery exports in a single stroke.

Ajai Kumar Sonkar, who is often mistaken for a jeweller, feels that commercialisation of the technique could make India a net exporter of the magnificent gem -- tales of which abound in Indian history.

Although India's gem and jewellery exports stood at over USD 17 billion in 2006-07, the country last year imported USD 7.24 million worth of raw pearls.

Even the famed Hyderabadi pearls are simply finished products of freshwater pearls imported from China. Roughly 80 per cent of the world pearl market is dominated by Japan, followed by Australia and China.

Japan's monopoly was created owing to the fact it held the technique to create nucleus -- the raw material for pearl culture -- that is implanted in the oyster through a surgery.

Sonkar, who has mastered production of nucleus and had presented his work before President A P J Abdul Kalam in August 2004, said he had received offers from corporates for enabling mass production. But, Sonkar turned them down as they insisted on exclusivity over technology that he could conceive in future.

The scientist had earlier announced that he has developed a 22mm nucleus, besting Japan's record of 18mm. In other words, the bigger the nucleus, the greater the size of pearls.

"My aim is to create jobs for hundreds of thousands of people by making this technology commercial, but cannot allow my research to become a casualty to this process," said Sonkar, 35, who founded the Pearl Aquaculture Research Foundation in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

His interest to mass-produce pearls is significant given the failure of government labs to perfect pearl culture despite over three decades of research.

"Being a valuable product, a project could earn huge foreign exchange... (besides) offer hundreds of jobs to the youth," he said.

Sonkar, who started working independently, perfected the technique to produce nucleated spherical pearls in freshwater and later transited activity to marine pearl culture.

According to him, the best pearls are those produced in marine water, as the freshwater mussels are irregular in shape and chiefly contain calcite calcium carbonate that lacks the pearly component.

Sonkar said the world's most prominent species of pearl oysters 'Pinctada Margaritifera', 'Pinctada Maxima' and 'Pinctada fucata' are available off the Indian archipelago and the climatic conditions were favourable for producing pearls.

His lab also hatches oysters, which are later selected and prepared for the nucleus implantation. The oysters are then transferred to the sea and brought back to the lab after six months to two years for harvest.

Arafura Pearls Holdings Announces a joint venture with Arrow Pearl Co Pty Ltd

http://www.aspecthuntley.com.au/

Pty Ltd and associates to manage its pearling operation at Beagle Bay on the
Dampier Peninsula in WA for an initial term of 2.5 years, with options at
Arafura’s election to extend the arrangement for a further 12.5 years.
The Beagle Bay operation is one of Western Australia’s well known pearl farms
having produced quality pearl harvests since the early 1980’s. The farm has
15,000 annual wild shell quota allowing approx 18,000 shells to be put into
production this calendar year. However, the land and sea based infrastructure is
significant and is capable of handling much higher production and grow out shell
numbers.
Arafura Pearls CEO, Andrew Hewitt said the arrangement made strategic sense
for Arafura and was another significant milestone in the company’s development
giving it a Western Australian presence for the first time.
“We believe this will lead to other opportunities for the company in Western
Australia and assist in achieving our goal of becoming one of Australia’s leading
pearling groups”, he said.
As part of financing the JV arrangement, Arafura Pearls is finalising
documentation issuing $1.5 million in secured convertible notes to two existing
shareholders who are unrelated parties to the company. The convertible notes
have a three (3) year term, an interest rate 5.5% above the 180 day bank bill
rate, and may be converted at the greater of $0.45 and 80% of the volume
weighted market price at the time of conversion.
Mr Hewitt said that he was encouraged by the investor interest shown in the
convertible note issue at these conversion prices.

Further information visit arafurapearls.com.au or contact:
Andrew Hewitt
Chief Executive Officer
Tel: (08) 9382 4818
Mob: 0419 903 940
ahewitt@arafurapearls.com.au

Japan show attracts over 16,000 buyers

http://www.nationaljewelernetwork.com/

July 03, 2007

Kobe, Japan—The 11th International Jewellery Kobe 2007 (IJK) brought in a record-breaking 16,167 professional buyers from Japan and abroad between May 17-19 at the Kobe International Exhibition Hall in Kobe.

The show also featured a record-breaking 633 exhibitors from 24 countries.

IJK show management cited the increased interest from attendees and exhibitors as an indication of the show's importance as a leading business venue for the jewelry trade.

In addition to increased attendance, IJK's gross available exhibition space has grown by 50 percent since a new extension wing was added to the exhibition hall in 2006. Country pavilions at the show included Hong Kong, Italy and Taiwan, and the record number of visitors to the show came from 33 countries.

The show features the world's largest exhibition of pearls, with leading companies from Ise, Kobe, Tokyo and others exhibiting their latest products. Also on display were diamond and colored-stone collections.

Exhibitors reported increased sales at the show this year, a trend that has characterized IJK.

"We were able to conduct very fruitful business negotiations at this year's IJK," said Shuro Uemoto, director of Australian opal company Mariora Corp. "More buyers are becoming aware of how convenient access to the IJK venue is from Kobe Airport, and this year we were able to meet important buyers from all over Japan. We regard IJK as a very important trade show where one is able to have good business negotiations with high-quality buyers."

The event is the largest of its kind in Western Japan, an area that accounts for more than half of the country's jewelry market.

Mother-of-pearl -- Classic beauty and remarkable strength

MADISON -- While the shiny material of pearls and abalone shells has long been prized for its iridescence and aesthetic value in jewelry and decorations, scientists admire mother-of-pearl for other physical properties as well.

Also called nacre ("NAY-ker"), mother-of-pearl is 3,000 times more fracture-resistant than the mineral it is made of, aragonite, says Pupa Gilbert, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "You can go over it with a truck and not break it - you will crumble the outside [of the shell] but not the [nacre] inside. And we don't understand how it forms - that's why it's so fun to study."

Understanding the mechanism by which nacre forms would be the first step toward harnessing its strength and simplicity, she says. "We don't know how to synthesize materials that are better than the sum of their parts."

Writing in the June 29 issue of Physical Review Letters, Gilbert and her colleagues in the UW-Madison department of physics and School of Veterinary Medicine, the Institute for the Physics of Complex Matter in Switzerland and the UW-Madison Synchrotron Radiation Center, now describe unexpected elements of nacre architecture that may underlie its strength and offer clues into how this remarkable material forms.

Like our bones and teeth, nacre is a biomineral, a combination of organic molecules - made by living organisms - and mineral components that organisms ingest or collect from their environment. The aragonite mineral in nacre is made of calcium carbonate, which marine animals form from elements abundant in seawater.

Though a mere 5 percent of abalone nacre is organic, this small fraction somehow lays enough foundation for the mineral components to assemble spontaneously, Gilbert says.

"Ninety-five percent of the mass of this biomineral is self-assembled, while only 5 percent is actively formed by the organism," she says. "It is one of the most efficient mechanisms you can think of."

To gain insight into this self-assembly process, Gilbert and graduate student Rebecca Metzler examined the structure of abalone nacre using synchrotron radiation - light emitted by electrons speeding around a curved track.

When used to examine a cross-section of an abalone shell, previously seen to resemble a brick wall with layers of organic "mortar" separating individual crystalline "bricks," the polarized light from the synchrotron revealed that the nacre wall was not uniform.

Instead, the wall contained distinct clumps of bricks, each an irregular column of crystals with identical composition but a crystal orientation different than neighboring columns.

Since orientation affects how crystals emit electrons, "some of the columns of bricks appear white and others appear black and more appear gray, depending on their crystal orientation," Gilbert explains.

The overall effect resembles a camouflage pattern, each roughly columnar cluster a slightly different shade. More at http://www.eurekalert.org/

Other info can be found at: http://www.earthtimes.org/ and http://www.upi.com/

Contact: Pupa Gilbert
pupa@physics.wisc.edu
608-262-5829
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Thousands of pearls found in recovered treasure

Source: http://www.jacksonville.com/

The Associated Press

KEY WEST, Fla. - Shipwreck salvors discovered thousands of pearls Friday after opening a small, lead box they said they found while searching for the wreckage of the 17th-century Spanish galleon Santa Margarita.

Divers from Blue Water Ventures of Key West said they found the sealed lead box, measuring 3.5 inches by 5.5 inches, along with a gold bar, eight gold chains and hundreds of other artifacts earlier this week. They were apparently buried beneath the ocean floor in approximately 18 feet of water about 40 miles west of Key West.

"There are several thousand pearls starting from an eighth of an inch to three-quarters of an inch," said Duncan Mathewson, marine archaeologist and partner in Blue Water Ventures. "We have no idea exactly how many, because we haven't counted them yet."

James Sinclair, archaeologist and conservator consulting with Mel Fisher's Treasures, Blue Water's joint-venture partners, said the pearls are very rare because of their antiquity and condition.

"Pearls don't normally survive in the ocean very well once they've lost the protection of the oyster that makes them," Sinclair said. "In this instance, we had a lead box and the silt that had sifted into the box from the site of the Margarita, which preserved the pearls in a fairly pristine state."

An initial cache of treasure and artifacts from the Santa Margarita was discovered in 1980 by pioneering shipwreck salvor Mel Fisher. The pearls will be conserved, documented and photographed in an archaeological laboratory above the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum in Key West.

"Until they're properly cleaned and conserved we don't know their value, but it would seem they would be worth upwards of a million dollars," Mathewson said.

The Baroda Pearls; Another Auction Record at Christies

The April 25^th Christie’s sale followed a now familiar patter of jaw dropping, world record prices for large rare gem. Previous records for Burmese Rubies and Kashmir Sapphires have been smashed. The Baroda Pearls (image left), a double strand of 68 natural pearls that were formerly the property of the Gawkwar of Baroda was auctioned along with matching brooch, earrings and ring for the record sum of 7.1 million dollars. At this same sale a 22 carat Kashmir sapphire also set a world record The April 25^th Christie’s sale followed a now familiar patter of jaw dropping, world record prices for large rare gem. Previous records for Burmese Rubies and Kashmir Sapphires have been smashed. The Baroda Pearls (image left), a double strand of 68 natural pearls that were formerly the property of the Gawkwar of Baroda was auctioned along with matching brooch, earrings and ring for the record sum of 7.1 million dollars. At this same sale a 22 carat Kashmir sapphire also set a world record... more at: http://gemwiseblogspotcom.blogspot.com/

Pearls and Global Warming

Pearl farmers live in some of the world’s most beautiful places: sheltered lagoons with pristine clean waters and some of the world’s highest biodiversity. But this closeness to nature also means that they are also one of the most vulnerable industries to climate change. At this year’s GIA Gemfest in Basel, which featured leading pearl producers from all over the world, the topic of the threat of global warming to the quantity and quality of pearl production was one of the interesting topics raised. more...

Mikimoto introduces South Sea grading system

New York—Pearl house Mikimoto has created a grading system for its South Sea cultured-pearl collections.

The proprietary system, similar to Mikimoto's Akoya grading system established in 1974, gives each pearl a grade based mainly on the luster and surface perfection of the gem. The system does not reflect a pearl's shape, size and color, but those factors do contribute to the pearl’s value.

Pearls receive grades from A to AAA. A AAA South Sea pearl represents the most perfect possible pearl.

more...

Week 11 - 17 Dec 2006

Pelosi piques public's interest

Los Angeles Times - CA,USA... Rebibo fielded calls from more than four dozen women of all political stripes who wanted a muted, multicolor strand of South Sea Tahitian pearls, just like the ...

Arafura closes IPO, buys $3m pearl farm

WA Business News - Northbridge,Western Australia,AustraliaSubiaco-based Arafura Pearls has closed its $4 million IPO and gone ahead with the $3 million acquisition of pearl farm close to its exisiting Northern

week 27 Nov - 3 Dec

Indonesian pearls as good as any in the region

Jakarta Post - Jakarta, Indonesia. Pearls have been cultivated since the late 19th century when the legendary Japanese noodle vendor, Mikimoto, implemented the surgical technique of implanting a ...

Imperfections spark creativity

Toronto Star - Ontario, Canada. "A pearl only a mother would love" ... Ron Dupuis is using the phrase to describe lots 604 in his upcoming auction ...

Source: Google News Alert

Week 20-26 Nov 06

Man in pearls is a perfect gem
Toronto Star - Ontario, Canada
"I wear them every day and only take them off to shower," says Rocco Pistolesi when asked why he wears the delicate dove grey necklace. "I just like pearls. I think if you like something, you should just do it."

Rare pearls to go on show at festival
Gulf Times - Doha,Qatar
OVER 1,000 eye-catching and rare pearls are due to be on display during the 1st Abu Dhabi International Pearl Festival (AIPF) scheduled to be launched on December 10, said the Festival’s chief executive, Khaled al-Sayegh yesterday during a press conference held at Qatar National Museum.

Rare pearls to go under the hammer at Abu Dhabi charity auction
Dubai City Guide - Dubai,United Arab Emirates... world’s most famous jewelers and designers at the 1st pearl auction to be held in Abu Dhabi and will include a selection of unprocessed pearls, said chairman ...

The precious few
Sydney Morning Herald - Sydney,New South Wales,Australia... different eras of design. There are Elizabethan-style pearls, Victorian diamond rings and contemporary neck pieces. She mixes black ...

Tiffany Pearls Book Published
New York fine art publishers Harry N. Abrams has just released a new book focusing upon the exquisite work of the master jewelers at Tiffany & Co. and entitled Tiffany Pearls. The 304-page, well-illustrated, book was penned by renowned Tiffany expert, John Loring, design director for Tiffany & Co. for the past three decades



Source: Google News Alert