Great quantities of pearls, the result of centuries of accumulation, and exceeding in splendor the collections of the present day, must have been garnered up in many cities of the Orient during the period of their prosperity. But these cities have disappeared, wrecked and ruined by fire and sword, and no vestige of their former wealth remains with them. Their treasures have been looted, hoarded, buried, or scattered to the four ends of the Orient, frequently finding their way in former times to Europe, but now more often to America, where fine gems always find a generous buyer.
In Syria, and some of the Oriental countries, until recently, and perhaps at the present time, it has been the custom, when a native wished to embark in the pearl business, for him to allow himself to drift gradually into a state of vagrancy, becoming a veritable tramp for fully a year. Then, with the money that he had himself or that which was supplied by his backer, he would visit the pearl fisheries and shrewdly acquire the gems to the best advantage, returning again as a vagrant; for if it were known at any point along the route that he carried with him sums of money his life would be in jeopardy, and he would probably never reach the fisheries; or, if he did, the chances are that he would never return. This may remind us of Marco Polo’s old coat, in which he had concealed some valuable gems, the gift of the Grand Khan. His wife heedlessly gave the coat to a beggar and it was only regained by a clever stratagem.
The product of the pearl fisheries, either that of entire fisheries where they are managed by a company, or the gatherings of merchants, or even the single gems which may be acquired by the smaller merchants, all these usually find their way to the great markets, although occasionally they change hands at once. In the East they are sent either to Bombay, Calcutta, Madras or Colombo; frequently they are intended for a higher market. Many of them remain in the East, for in the East to-day a fine pearl is as much prized as ever, and there are those who love pearls as much as did the King of Maabar in the time of Marco Polo. However, the world over, there is a feeling that if things are sent to the greatest market there will be an opportunity for disposing of them at the greatest price. Therefore, the larger number of parcels of exceptionally fine pearls are sent to the London market, a few of them going to Paris, the cable, often within a few days after their arrival, informing the sender of the acceptance or rejection of a parcel, or of a new offer which is often accepted. In this market they are acquired by the dealers, who frequently exhibit many times before the lot is purchased.
Pearls from a fishery are in many cases of mixed quality; that is to say, they are of different sizes and varying grades of perfection as regards skin, color, and orient. These parcels are often sold directly on offers to dealers, but generally they are sold by brokers who show the various parcels to the dealers, each of the latter in turn making his offer on that portion of the parcel which is of most value to him. Thus a single dealer may want one pearl, a dozen, or even twenty or more, to complete a great necklace, or else to add to, or improve the necklace, by better graduation or by increasing the evenness of the color. When the broker receives enough offers to give him the desired price for the entire parcel, the sale is consummated, and each one who has made an offer and who has sealed his particular parcel until his offer is accepted or rejected, receives his portion. Pearls do not grow in the form of necklaces, although they are frequently seen in this form only, and to create a large necklace means not only the use of the pearls of one fishery alone, but it often requires a selection from pearls of various sizes, the product of many fisheries.
It is needless to say that even the shrewdest dealers do not always succeed in their purchases of lots which are to be broken up when the proper number of bids are obtained.
When the pearl revival came in 1898 there was a sudden and rapid upward tendency in the prices, because at that time, in England, money could be borrowed upon a very low rate of interest—as low as 3 per cent.,—and it was a temptation to a number of young men to enter as dealers into the pearl trade. The result was that a number of new stocks were created, not for a regular, but for a speculative demand, and this tended to advance the price spasmodically, rather than gradually, as it would have risen by regular consumption. However, when the foreign market became higher, the demand for pearls was not as great as had been anticipated, and there was a sudden adjustment of prices and a readjustment of the pearl stocks, resulting in the elimination of a certain number of speculative dealers; and, notwithstanding the state of the fisheries, pearls have not advanced so rapidly in the past two years as they did from 1898 to 1905.
More than go per cent. of the pearls of commerce, whether they are round, perfect, half- or seed-pearls, are of oriental origin; that is, pearls from the true pearl-oyster. About 8 per cent. are probably from the fresh-water mussels, three fourths of which are from the United States.
American fresh-water pearls have had many prejudices to overcome, often because of the natural indifference in regard to anything that is found at home or is easily obtainable. It has been said that, in comparison with foreign pearls, they had less specific gravity; that they were not so hard, and that their luster was not as good. It is certain, however, that the skin is generally smooth, and although they may not have so peculiar an orient, their brilliancy equals that of any known pearls. Sometimes they are translucent and either pink or of a faintly bluish tint, like molten silver. More frequently their hue is white, rose, pale yellow, or pale copper, deepening to copper red until they resemble the most intense and highly polished copper button.
According to the estimates of the value of European fresh-water pearls given by seventeenth and eighteenth century writers, their worth was considered to be one half that of oriental pearls of approximately the same quality. Few European pearls, we feel sure, were ever found that possessed the wonderful beauty and brilliancy of the pearls found either in the Miami or the Mississippi and its many tributaries.
So great a quantity of the poorer quality of pearls have been found, principally in the Mississippi Valley, that a foreign dealer has bought 30,000 ounces of baroque pearls at $1 an ounce, and of the slightly better grades fully 100,000 dollars’ worth were obtained in the year 1906. The exportation was strictly limited to the poorer qualities. When pearls are worth from $1 to $6 a grain and upward, they are rarely sent abroad, as the regular pearls of this quality are much appreciated by Americans, and find a ready sale in the United States. The poor pearls above mentioned were principally sent to New York, either from the local fishermen, or else through the dealers in sweet-water shells, in lots of a fraction of an ounce, or in bags weighing a number of pounds. Thirty thousand ounces would equal 18,180,000 grains.