Just wondering if there is value in my pearls. I have strings brought back for my mother and grandmother by my father during the vietnam war. He wrote notes to each of them on the script pads he had while he was there. Can contact me at ouawstableATpaDOTnet
Stormy Weather For Pearl Industry by: Yvonne Hammouda-Eyre
Good Morning!
Vietnam pearls is an interesting subject today, due to the fact that Japan is collapsing as a pearl producer, along with China that has been crippled by tropical storms. In 2007 between August 9 and 12 - 65% of China's Akoya crop was destroyed after continuous rain lowered the salinity levels of bays so low, that tens of millions of nucleated oysters, literally died. Salt-free diets are not good, for saltwater oysters that grow in salt-waters.
As a result of this natural disaster alone, Akoya prices climbed by as much as 40 percent, in the following spring and summer when pearl shortfalls began to be noticed. As part of an industry rescue operation, China gave farmers generous grants to buy new oysters and bead nuclei. But the point is, and in relation to Vietnam, China is such an environmental basket case herself, that both it's saltwater and freshwater pearl industries face plenty of future stormy weather.
The Bay of Halong in Vietnam was a famous site for Natural Pearls for many centuries. The pearls came from different species of Pinctada.
The first attempts to produce Akoya cultured pearls in Vietnam, goes back to the nineteen sixties, (which coincidentally, is around the date of your Vietnamese pearls) but the production was stopped during the Vietnamese War. The production started again in the nineteen nineties in Halong Bay, in Nha Trang and in the island of Phu Quoc.
Vietnam started cultivating akoya pearls, south sea pearls in the pinctada maxima oysters, black pearls like tahitian pearls in the pinctada margaritifera oysters, white vietnamese pearls and freshwater pearls in lakes in Quang Ninh province in north and in Tay Ninh province in south.
Today, almost all the local production is sold on the international market and it is really hard to find vietnamese cultured pearls, vietnamese white pearls on the local markets or in the local jewelries. The rarity factor will add to their value. Do you have any form of documentation, or pearl bio-data :-) to confirm the pearl's were produced in Vietnam?
Vietnam has been, in relative terms, a small producer, however, I believe that Vietnam will play a more important role in the cultured pearl industry in the future, for all the above reasons.
With Best Regards Yvonne
Reference: David Federman / Modern Jeweler, Oct 2007
