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Nov 8, 2010
Pearl Jewelry - The Story of Pearl Hunters
As long as pearl jewelry have been known to people, they have been a highly sought commodity for their beauty. It's only in recent times however that the industry has taken the hunt for the perfect pearl to a whole different level. Today, the shiny orbs that we see on in display in jewelry stores have actually almost always been grown in farms.
That's a far cry from the dangerous extraction and collection methods used before the invention of modern technology. In the past, not more than 100 years ago, the only way to retrieve pearls was by diving in lakes, floods and the ocean to pick them up, one at the time. The unfortunate divers who'se job it was to do this, were often poor and lured by the relative large sums they could get. The diver would sometimes have to dive as deep as 100 feet on one single breath of air. In order to preserve air and to stay submerged the longest, the divers would hold on to heavy stones on the way down.
Naturally, this dangerous activity was reserved for the desperate or the powerless - in many cases slaves or extremely poor peasents. Today, this method is all but obsolete in most places of the world. The cheaper cultured pearls have become popular and are many times the only pearls available to the consumer.
There are however still a few isolated areas that practice this old art of pearl diving. Some of the finest natural pearl speciments come from the gulf of Bahrain. Here, divers still risk their health to retrieve what are considered the top of the crop in the world. In fact, Bahrain wants no part of the sale of cultured pearls, banned from trade. Bahrain is one of the few places on earth that does an active job in trying to preserve the natural habitat and waters from pollution.
It's an interesting story and one that continues to fascinate buyers around the world. Somehow, the beauty of the pearl grows when it's been retrieved from the depth of the ocean.
Posted at 10:21 pm by Whoyg2676
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Buying Pearl Jewelry Without Being Ripped Off
Buying pearl jewelry can be fun, exciting and confusing. Whether you're considering a gift of pearl jewelry for someone special or as a treat for yourself, take some time to learn the terms used in the industry. Here's some information to help you get the best quality pearl jewelry for your money, whether you're shopping in a traditional brick and mortar store or online.
Pearls
Natural or real pearls are made by oysters and other mollusks. Cultured pearls also are grown by mollusks, but with human intervention; that is, an irritant introduced into the shells causes a pearl to grow. Imitation pearls are man-made with glass, plastic, or organic materials.
Because natural pearls are very rare, most pearls used in jewelry are either cultured or imitation pearls. Cultured pearls, because they are made by oysters or mollusks, usually are more expensive than imitation pears. A cultured pearl's value is largely based on its size, usually stated in millimeters, and the quality of its nacre coating, which give it luster. Jewelers should tell your if the pearls are cultured or imitation. Some black, bronze, gold, purple, blue and orange pearls, whether natural or cultured, occur that way in nature; some, however, are dyed through various processes. Jewelers should tell you whether the colored pearls are naturally colored, dyed or irradiated.
Clams, oysters, mussels and many other mollusks with limy shells are known to produce pearls. But very few kinds yield gem pearls of jeweler's quality. The pearl is an abnormal growth of mother-of-pearl, or nacre, imbedded in the soft bodies of these shellfish. It is built up, layer upon layer, in the same way as nacre is added to the lining of the growing shell and always has the same color and luster. For example, over the country, hundreds of good-sized pearls are found each year in the oysters we eat. Unfortunately these have no commercial value regardless of whether they have been cooked or not because they are dull opaque white or purple like the shell of the parent oyster. In recent times almost all pearls of gem quality come from the oriental pearl oyster which has a bright shimmering translucent nacre.
A pearl starts growing when some irritating foreign substance such as a sand grain, bit of mud, parasite or other object becomes lodged in the shell-producing gland called the mantle. Pearls formed in the soft flesh where nacre can be added on all sides are most likely to be spherical and the most highly prized. By far the great majority are flattened or variously distorted and have little value. Size, color, luster and freedom from flaws are other essential qualities. Unlike other gems, such as diamonds, pearls have an average life of only about 50 years. In time the small amount of water in a pearl's make-up is lost and its surface cracks. Because they are mostly lime, necklaces which are worn often are injured by the acid secretions of the human skin.
Posted at 10:14 pm by Whoyg2676
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Nov 16, 2009
The information below is offered as a
service to users of allAfrica.com. In providing it, AllAfrica Global
Media accepts no obligation or cultured pearl responsibility to supply information on this topic to any individual or organizations.
What is advance fee fraud?
Users of allAfrica.com may from time to time receive emails which
exhort them to help the writer of the email to export large sums of
money from an African country in return for a share of the transferred
funds. These schemes are freshwater pearl
now notorious and variously known as advance fee frauds, scam letters,
or ¡®419¡ä letters, after the numbered clause in Nigeria¡¯s penal code
outlawing this practice.
Although it is widely believed that all such emails emanate from
Nigeria there are examples purporting to be sent from all over the
continent and indeed, other parts of the world including Brazil,
Malaysia and other examples recently received in our offices.
How the scam works
The writer of a ¡®419¡ä letter - sometimes pearl jewelry Chian
an individual with an elevated position in a government or central bank
- will usually first explain how he/she came to have access to a sum of
money usually in the millions of dollars. They will often readily
acknowledge that the funds are the ill-gotten gains of corruption,
theft or other illegal means, although some will suggest that they have
come by the money by happy accident.
Posted at 01:12 am by Whoyg2676
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Regrettably, we are powerless
You are advised that there is no connection whatsoever between any allAfrica articles cited and the fraud being perpetrated. Any claimed relationship between information contained in the articles and in the scam letters is artificial and manufactured by the letter writers. Further, AllAfrica Global Media and its website christmas gift allAfrica.com have no knowledge of or connection with those perpetrating this fraud. Regrettably, we are powerless to prevent the fraudsters from citing links to articles we have posted; We have more than 600,000 stories in our archive, and scam letter writers select different ones for different scams. The writers of such letters are free to find and select articles and cite links from anywhere on the freshwater pearl earrings Internet. AllAfrica Global Media cannot prevent them doing this however much we would like to do so.
What to do if you receive such a letter Do not be tempted to respond favourably in the hope of getting more information. You will merely be confirming your email address and making it easier for the perpetrators of the fraud to pursue you. But whether you have responded to the email or not, you should take action. You can supply a copy of the letter you pearl earrings wholesale have received to the appropriate law-enforcement bureau in your country and if you have suffered financial loss you will want to contact them for advice - use the sites and links below; you may also want to forward the letter to the email service being used by the fraudsters to send out such letters.
Posted at 01:11 am by Whoyg2676
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In the simplest version of the fraud
The writer will ask the recipient to
help move the cash out of the African country by opening a new bank
account in their country or making an existing account available.
Alternatively he/she may provide bank account details. The writer may
suggest that the recipient ¡®primes¡¯ the account by depositing some
thousands of dollars in that account and will ask for the account
details. In return for setting up the account and freshwater pearl jewelry
aiding transfer of the funds, the recipient is promised a significant
share - perhaps a few million dollars - of the total once the
transaction is complete.
In the simplest version of the fraud, the recipient¡¯s money used to
prime the account may simply be taken out by the scam perpetrators but
this is not usual. The objective of the letter writer is to persuade
the recipient voluntarily to pay silver pearl necklace out more and more money to facilitate the transaction.
Most commonly, those who answer such letters and agree to
participate are led on to attend meetings with the supposed writer of
the letter, perhaps even travelling to Africa or elsewhere to meet and
discuss the terms of the deal, committing more and more money to the
project, especially as ¡®unexpected problems¡¯ arise. Having already
committed large amounts of money, they may be reluctant to pull out and
instead pay more in the hope of retrieving the ¡®investment¡¯. Ultimately
they lose it all. Although there pearl strand wholesale
have been a few cases in which the perpetrators have been caught and
made to pay money back, it has rarely been more than a small proportion
of the original outlay.
Use of allAfrica.com articles to buttress the fraudsters¡¯ claims
In some scam letters, reference has been made to articles on
allAfrica.com, and a link provided, in an attempt to buttress the
plausibility of the scam.
Posted at 01:10 am by Whoyg2676
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Think about this. Reporting the news
AllAfrica Global Media preserves a
voice for Africa in the international marketplace of news and ideas -
at a time when that voice is needed more than ever. The AllAfrica
archive is a valuable collection of information on the world¡¯s
second-largest continent.
Think about this. Reporting the news, aggregating it, making it
available to you and compensating participating publishers across
Africa - it all costs money. No news organization can cover Africa
without charging fees or collecting subsidies. If you do your part, we
can do our job.
Unlike most of your news sources, we freshwater pearl necklace
provide AllAfrica, All the Time. But, like your public broadcaster, we
can¡¯t do the job that needs to be done without your help.
AllAfrica¡¯s news and information archive is a distrinctive large and
growing collection containing over two million articles and documents
from allAfrica.com, the leading Africa information source on the
Internet. AllAfrica collects and tin cup pearl necklace
aggregates articles from African news organizations, as well as
documents and releases from several hundred governmental,
nongovernmental and international institutions, plus reporting from the
award winning AllAfrica news team.
The full archive, which dates from 1996, is available only on
allAfrica.com. Current news stories on the site (up to 365 days old)
remain free wheat pearl and accessible without registration or subscription. A subscription is required to access the complete archive
Posted at 01:09 am by Whoyg2676
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Our increasing prominence
AllAfrica has become the source-of-record for African news and information, relied on in government offices, boardrooms, educational institutions and international organizations around the world, as well as by interested individuals. For two successive years, the site was nominated by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences as Best News Site for a prestigious ¡®Webby¡¯ award, alongside the christmas gifts news sites of the BBC, MSNBC and Google. In 2005, AllAfrica was one of 10 organizations chosen for an ¡®African Developer Award¡¯ on behalf of the New Partnership for Africa¡¯s Development (Nepad). And AllAfrica has given a global voice and revenue to over 150 African media organizations. Their work is read on our site and, in addition, distributed through such commercial services as LexisNexis, Comtex, Europ¨¦enne des cultured pearl Donn¨¦es, Factiva (Reuters and Dow Jones), Bloomberg and the Financial Times, which reach tens of millions of end users. Our increasing prominence is evidence of the needs we serve - but it poses challenges. Although AllAfrica Global Media has moved steadily towards being cash-positive - and therefore sustainable - we must increase revenues quickly to cope with unexpectedly rapid growth. Earnings from ads and content sales are rising but do not yet cover expenses. Nor do they sustain the steady flow of revenues that we aim cultured pearl to keep pumping into the coffers of the network of African newspapers who provide content. In addition, we want to keep the basic site free to all comers, so as not to widen the digital divide. The premium service is a way of closing the gap.
Posted at 01:07 am by Whoyg2676
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