Antique Black Cultured Pearls on Sterling Silver Studs Earrings

Description

Antique Black Cultured Pearls on Sterling Silver Studs (NOT cheap electroplate).
Each pearl averages about 1 1/2 carat, is about 6 millimeters in diameter. Pearls are from 1950’s or 1960’s Hyderabad, India, and probably originated in Japan. Settings are high-quality, contemporary, USA manufactured.
DETAIL:
The Red Sea was the primary source of pearls for the Ancient Mediterranean world. They were highly prized in the ancient classical world, where it was believed that pearls were formed when an angel's tears fell into an open oyster shell. Celebrating our inheritance from the ancient world, here are two very beautiful cultured pearl earrings. The pearls themselves had been sitting in a warehouse in Hyderabad, India for decades – perhaps since the early 1950’s. We mounted the pearls onto high quality – not cheap silver plated – contemporary sterling silver USA manufactured stud earrings. This is first-quality jewelry designed to last years and years, not cheap costume jewelry. If you prefer, we could remount them onto 14kt solid gold Studs. The pearls possess a highly polished, reflective, lustrous surface with iridescent highlights. Each is about six millimeters in diameter, and each weighs about one and one-half carat. And yes, these images are of the actual earrings offered.
HISTORY:
The pearl is likely the first gemstone known to prehistoric man. Ancient Mediterranean cultures believed pearls were formed when an angel's tears fell into the open oyster shell. In ancient times the Red Sea was an important source of pearls to the various ancient Mediterranean civilizations. In the ancient gemstone markets of Babylon, 4,000 years ago, pearls were prized possessions believed to restore youth. Written accounts of pearl jewelry exist both in third millennium B.C. Indian and Chinese texts. Through ancient Rome and into medieval Europe, pearls always decorated crowns and robes of kings and queens. A pair of pearl earrings owned by Cleopatra were estimated by the historian Pliny to have a value of about 60 million sesterces (today worth million in mere bullion value).
A fragment of the oldest known pearl jewelry, found in the sarcophagus of a Persian princess who died in 520 BC, is displayed in the Louvre in Paris. During the Renaissance, the European appetite for pearls became so great that laws forbade anyone other than royalty or the very privileged classes from even wearing pearls. Pearls were the exclusive domain of the crown! The appetite for pearls was enormous, and the natural salt water pearl beds of Central and South America were ravaged. Unknown today to most, America exported to Victorian Europe large numbers of very high quality freshwater pearls from the Ohio, Mississippi, and Tennessee River basins. So many gems were exported to Europe that the New World quickly gained the appellation "Land of Pearls." Pearls are found in a wide variety of colors and shades, the most highly valued being white, black, rose, and cream. Black pearls are very rare and highly prized, and are found only in Tahiti. Also especially prized are rose-colored pearls found in India, Sri Lanka (Ceylon), and the South Pacific.
Except for the freshwater production of small specimens, genuine solid pearls are by and large only obtainable as antiques. From the 1930’s to present day, cultured pearls from Japan have predominated the marketplace. Most people generally credit the “invention” of cultured pearls with Kokichi Mikimoto in Japan at the turn of the twentieth century. However eight hundred years ago in China, monks planted carvings of Buddhist deities into river mollusks in order to be coated with pearl-like layers, the first recorded cultured “pearls”. Since the 1990’s, with the decline of Japanese cultured pearl production due to pollution and disease, China has increasingly been the dominant supplier of cultured pearls, both freshwater and saltwater. However it is still generally believed that the finest cultured pearls ever produced, with the exception of limited quantities produced in Tahiti, were produced in Japan between 1930 and 1970. If you’d like to learn more about the history of pearls, there’s a great article
here
.
SHIPPING & RETURNS/REFUNDS
: Your purchase will ordinarily be shipped within 48 hours of payment. We package as well as anyone in the business, with lots of protective padding and containers. All of our shipments are fully insured against loss, and our shipping rates include the cost of this coverage (through stamps.com, Shipsaver.com, the USPS, UPS, or Fed-Ex). International tracking is provided free by the USPS for certain countries, other countries are at additional cost.
ADDITIONAL PURCHASES
do receive a
VERY LARGE
discount, typically about per item so as to reward you for the economies of combined shipping/insurance costs. We do offer U.S. Postal Service Priority Mail, Registered Mail, and Express Mail for both international and domestic shipments, as well United Parcel Service (UPS) and Federal Express (Fed-Ex). Please ask for a rate quotation. We will accept whatever payment method you are most comfortable with.
If upon receipt of the item you are disappointed for any reason whatever, I offer a no questions asked 30-day return policy. Send it back, I will give you a complete refund of the purchase price; 1) less our original shipping/insurance costs, 2) less non-refundable PayPal/eBay payment processing fees. Please note that PayPal does NOT refund fees. Even if you “accidentally” purchase something and then cancel the purchase before it is shipped, PayPal will not refund their fees. So all refunds for any reason, without exception, do not include PayPal/eBay payment processing fees (typically between 3% and 5%) and shipping/insurance costs (if any). If you’re unhappy with PayPal and eBay’s “no fee refund” policy, and we are EXTREMELY unhappy, please voice your displeasure by contacting PayPal and/or eBay. We have no ability to influence, modify or waive PayPal or eBay policies.
ABOUT US
: We travel to Russia each year seeking antique gemstones and jewelry from one of the globe’s most prolific gemstone producing and cutting centers, the area between Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg, Russia. From all corners of Siberia, as well as from India, Ceylon, Burma and Siam, gemstones have for centuries gone to Yekaterinburg where they have been cut and incorporated into the fabulous jewelry for which the Czars and the royal families of Europe were famous for. My wife grew up and received a university education in the Southern Urals of Russia, just a few hours away from the mountains of Siberia, where alexandrite, diamond, emerald, sapphire, chrysoberyl, topaz, demantoid garnet, and many other rare and precious gemstones are produced. Though perhaps difficult to find in the USA, antique gemstones are commonly dismounted from old, broken settings – the gold reused – the gemstones recut and reset.
Before these gorgeous antique gemstones are recut, we try to acquire the best of them in their original, antique, hand-finished state – most of them centuries old. We believe that the work created by these long-gone master artisans is worth protecting and preserving rather than destroying this heritage of antique gemstones by recutting the original work out of existence. That by preserving their work, in a sense, we are preserving their lives and the legacy they left for modern times. Far better to appreciate their craft than to destroy it with modern cutting. Not everyone agrees – fully 95% or more of the antique gemstones which come into these marketplaces are recut, and the heritage of the past lost. But if you agree with us that the past is worth protecting, and that past lives and the produce of those lives still matters today, consider buying an antique, hand cut, natural gemstone rather than one of the mass-produced machine cut (often synthetic or “lab produced”) gemstones which dominate the market today.
Our interest in the fabulous history of Russian gemstones and the fabulous jewelry of the Czar’s led to further education and contacts in India, Ceylon, and Siam, other ancient centers of gemstone production and finishing. We have a number of “helpers” (family members, friends, and colleagues) in Russia and in India who act as eyes and ears for us year-round, and in reciprocity we donate a portion of our revenues to support educational institutions in Russia and India. Occasionally while in Russia, India, Siam, and Ceylon we will also find such good buys on unique contemporary gemstones and jewelry that we will purchase a few pieces to offer to our customers here in America. These are always offered clearly labeled as contemporary, and not antiques – just to avoid confusion. We can set most any antique gemstone you purchase from us in your choice of styles and metals ranging from rings to pendants to earrings and bracelets; in sterling silver, 14kt solid gold, and 14kt gold fill. When you purchase from us, you can count on quick shipping and careful, secure packaging. We would be happy to provide you with a certificate/guarantee of authenticity for any item you purchase from me. There is a fee for mailing under separate cover. Please see our
"ADDITIONAL TERMS OF SALE."