Sometimes you need more than ideal water conditions, healthy oysters and quality technicians
If you found a place where the water was crystal clear, full of nutrients, and ranged in temperature from 60 to 80 degrees during the year, where healthy oysters were readily available and you had a host of skilled pearling technicians at your disposal, you should be able to cultivate some of the finest quality cultured pearls, right? Wrong.
While the conditions described above are necessary for quality pearls to be cultivated, it is also necessary that the country where the pearls are being cultivated have a stable government that looks favorably on commerce. The following are two examples of where an unstable government ruined the pearling industry.
I would like to thank Elisabeth Strack for allowing me to use part of her work in this article
Pearls is the definitive book on pearls available at
Burma (now known as Myanmar)
Burma has always been known for producing the finest quality rubies and sapphires and jade. At one time it was known for producing the finest white South Sea cultured pearls available. In 1954, Mr. K. Takashima along with a Burmese government syndication formed the South Sea Pearl Co. The first crop using Pinctada maxima oysters came to market in 1957 and was an international hit. No one had seen pearls this large in such a high quality. The Burmese pearls resembled their cousins, smaller top quality Japanese Akoya pearls. There was a new crop of these pearls harvested every three months and they were auctioned off at the famous Burmese Pearl and Gem Auctions.
Things came to an abrupt end in August of 1963 when the government which came into power the previous year thru a coup d’etat nationalized the pearl farms and unceremoniously kick Mr. Takashima and his pearl technicians out of the country. The Burmese tried to continue the cultivation by themselves until the early 1980’s but were never successful. The beautiful Burmese pearls were lost to the world. In 1996 two Japanese firms began working on a new pearl cultivation in conjunction with the Myanmar government. They have produced some finer quality pearls of a creamy color, but nothing like the original Burmese.
Red Sea Cultured Pearls
Let me tell you where these pearls were cultivated and you will understand the problem immediately. Dongonab Bay in the SUDAN.
Dongonab Bay has all of the necessary qualities to produce fine quality cultured pearls. The water is clean, full of nutrients and is an ideal location for the collection and rearing of the oyster spats Pinctada margaritifera. The Pinctada margaritifera is the same oyster that produces Tahitian pearls but the species natural to Dongonab Bay produces pearls ranging in color from darker grey to almost white. The pearls range in size from 8MM to 12MM and have smooth skin and high luster, qualities that are a good niche in the cultured pearl market. In 1996 a group of investors started a pearl farm in Dongonab Bay. It was doomed to fail because of the rampant corruption, dishonesty and a lack of education and ambition among the inhabitants. The investors abandoned the project and counted their loses. No one has tried since.
There are several characteristics that justify this positive assessment: the lustre of the pearls is far greater than that of South Sea cultured pearls. Their spectrum of colours ranges from green to blue, from white to golden yellow and through to cinnamon. The average thickness of the nacreous layer is the strongest of all four saltwater cultured pearls. The new area of pearl culture offers the most ideal conditions one could imagine. Fishers already dived for the pearls worn by pharaohs and women here in ancient times. The pearl farm that is continuing this tradition in modern times is located in Dongonab Bay. It is the estuary of a former river from prehistoric geological times. The maximum water depth here is 20 metres. This means that the water temperature is very similar to the land temperature, fluctuating between 17 degrees Celsius in the winter and 34 degrees Celsius in the summer. This fluctuation in temperature not only encourages the production of mother-of-pearl, but is also responsible for the much finer lustre of the pearls, as the mussels produce more mother-of-pearl than if the temperatures remain constant. In addition, the layers of aragonite are much finer and of greater quality if the temperature are low. In addition, the wages in Sudan are just a fraction of what they are in Australia or Tahiti, for example.
Sudan
Between 1905 and 1922, one of the most successful experiments with Pinctada margaritifera erythrensis took place in Dungunab Bay off the Sudanese coast of the Red Sea under the guidance of Cyril Crossland. The colonial government stopped the work in 1922, and William Reed resumed Crossland’s work in 1958 on recommendation of the United Nations. The purpose was to revive the mother-of-pearl industry, and even a button factory was built in 1960.
In 1962, the “Food and Agricultural Organization” within the United Nations made a report in which it recommended pearl culture under the supervision of foreigners in order to create a new source of income for the country. The Japanese Asahi Optical Company built a pearl farm under the principles of the “Diamond Policy”, which was shut down in 1969 due to general climatic and other difficulties in the region. After this, the Japanese company started a new project in French Polynesia and co-operated with the Fisheries Office there.
There have been further attempts at pearl culture in the Red Sea using the dark-lipped pearl mollusk. The aim was to produce pearls which could be compared with Tahitian cultured pearls. No details have come to light so far.
In
1997, Rosario Autore and his brother Nino founded a company for pearl culture at
the old site in Dungunab Bay. There were apparently both Japanese, Sudanese and
Indian partners and William Reed was also a partner. Initial reports indicated
that Pinctada maxima imports from Australia were used. It is more plausible
that the local Pinctada margaritifera is used instead, as is indicated by the
owners. The salt content of the Red Sea would make it difficult for Pinctada
maxima to adapt. Autore is one of the leading figures in the Australian cultured
pearl industry, and has made a name for himself with his Perlautore
International Company, which successfully markets Australian cultured pearls.
The first harvest amounted to 12,500 pearls. The first sales were made in 1999/2000 through the Michael
Bonke Company from Deggendorf in Germany, which had managed to secure the exclusive rights for the first two years and still holds a monopoly for obtaining the pearls. The company concentrates on the German market. The second harvest amounted to 4,500 pearls.
A total of 150,000 animals were operated on in autumn 2000, and the estimated harvest of 45,000 to 60,000 pearls was due in February 2002. Although the first and second harvests produced numerous Keshis and circle pearls, the third harvest revealed an improvement in quality (personal communication, Michael Bonke). The year 2002 saw however high mortality rates and the production does not exceed 1 0—20,000 pearls per year since. The CIBJO congress 2001 in Paris gave the name “Red Sea Cultured Pearls” to the new product, after rejecting the original name “Oriental cultured pearls”, which had been chosen by the Bonke Company.
The pearls are found mainly in green and yellow hues, and the first yield also contained pistachio and apricot colours. The second yield also included golden and champagne-coloured pearls. In addition, there were a number of light and dark hues which resemble both South Sea and Tahitian cultured pearls and have a good luster that is attributed to the relatively high water temperatures in the Red Sea. In 2005, the situation has stagnated to a certain point. The investors seem to have become reluctant and William Reed has withdrawn his part of the capital. The Sudanese partner Mohammed Osman who holds 51 per cent apparently wants to get more involved in the marketing and selling of the pearls. The farm continues to work but did not improve or increase its production. There had been attempts to produce lighter colours which were however not accepted by the international clients who preferred the greenish-yellowish hues.
The everyday life of the Pearl farm consists of various work. The chief work is the cleaning that shell panels. The water in the bay is so nutrient-rich that panels after two to three weeks it is so felted that the shells hardly still water and/or food wars must, therefore every two weeks the panels with speedboats are in-collected and either into “cleaning the unit” at the beach, or to the work boat, which is driven “Salam”. There they are released from the sea-seaweed and returned then their master place.
… at those the individual panels are hung up. With rough sea the anchorages tear themselves loosely, or the buoys run full waters and panels tear themselves loosely. The Bottomlines is can the anchorages attached at concrete-supported columns at the sea-bottom also here separate.
Into the Dongonab bay native shell is a subspecies „marga ritifa “. Thus of the shell relatives very close, with which in French Polynesien „the tahiti bead is bred “, it is smaller than „pinktada the maxima “, which in Australia „the South Seas cultured pearls “produced and a completely strange colouring has. Their Perlmutt is in the basic clay/tone pistaziengrün. The whole chromatic spectrum is enough however from platinum grey to brown yellow.
In the “Cleaning unit” panels are cleaned:
. Walter Reed,
a pioneer with forty years of experience in culturing pearls, is behind the new
pearl farm. He was also the co-founder of the first pearl farm in French
Polynesia. In 1996, he was requested to develop a peal industry in Sudan. Reed
chose as his partner the autore group, which controls roughly 40 % of trade with
cultured South Sea pearls from Australia. The joint venture was granted the
monopoly to fish and unrestrictedly for pearl mussels and to cultivate them in
the Dongonab region. The first 7,000 mussels were operated in March/April 1997.
The first harvest – 4,500 pearls – then followed in autumn 1999. It was only
then that the full spectrum of colours in the new pearls became visible. This
variety was due to the local pearl mussel (a variation of Margarita). Martin
Wolf is responsible for sales, as long as he accepts the full harvest. His
company cooperates with Michael Bonke in this respect. The first string of
pearls from new culture project was sold in Hof in summer 2000, the second in
Grünwald and the next in Neumarkt. The highest price paid so far for a string of
pearls cultured in the Red Sea was generated at the Sotheby’s November Auction
in the same year. In view of the fact that the maximum size of pearls in the
first harvest of South Sea shells is 12 mm, the initial pearls were
comparatively small. However, a small number of pearls that were operated a
second time yielded larger pearls. A total of 8,200 pearls had been harvested by
the end of 2001. The figure had risen dramatically to roughly 45,000 at a value
of roughly 3.9m US $ by 2002. The number of large pearls also rose at the same
time.
I would like to thank Elisabeth Strack for allowing me to use part of her work in this article