|
The Pearls Company is the European representative of You Heng Sheng Pearls, a high standard Chinese family owned pearl farm and factory located in Zhu Ji, the renowned fresh water pearl production area 200 miles south of Shanghai.  The heart and soul in our business is quality commitment. With our 300 skilled workers, cutting edge equipment and production process, we cultivate premium fresh water all-nacre pearls from 3mm to 10mm, A to AAA quality, with beautiful lustre and many natural colors.
As one of the largest pearl production businesses in China, we know how important the quality, price and delivery is for our customers, so we strive to provide best quality pearls with reasonable price. Because they are not nucleated with shell bead, so unlike seawater pearls  which can be formed in 2 - 3 years, fresh water pearls usually takes twice of time to grow to the same
|
Our large pearl farm in China
|
size. The pearl formation process difference make fresh water pearls full nacre, whereas seawater pearls have 0.5 mm nacre over a bead core.  With today’s advanced cultivation technology, our fresh water pearls are closely comparative to seawater pearls in terms of roundness, lustre and transparency. Our fresh water pearls come in various colors: white, cream, light pink, golden peach, orange, light purple, dark purple with bronze overtone, light green, bronze and black, only black is died and all other colors are naturally formed due to different water quality and variety of oysters. Cutivating, harvesting and processing pearls are a series of pains-taking labor intensive procedure. The beautiful pearls that are delivered to you have all been carefully raised, harvested, sorted, matched, polished and drilled. And they are from the top 4% of all pearls harvested at the farm.
Once being selected, processed and polished, the pearls are graded according to their size, shape, blemish level, lustreand color. Grade AA, A or less grade pearls like baroque shapes and potato shapes are then drilled or half drilled, strung on strands for wholesale. Top quality grade AAA pearls are priced and sold individually according to each single one’s quality. Please see our quality reference card to compare the quality of pearls. As there is not one International standard for pearl quality certification, pearls’ quality idenfication is somewhat a subjective process. According to our many year’s experience, our Grade B is equal to  USA’s Grade A, and our Grade A sometimes is identified Grade AA in US. It proves that our quality inspection standard is very high. When buy pearls, you need to choose a high standard supplier like us to guarantee the quality of what you buy.
Pearls’ quality identification reference
Size - The most apparent quality of pearl is size, the larger the size, all else holds equal, the higher the value of pearl. Generally speaking South Sea pearls and Akoya pearls are larger size pearls than fresh water pearls. With today’s technology, we can cultivate fresh water pearls up to 13mm or even more, but the majority of fresh water pearls size around 6 -10 mm.
Lustre - Pearl quality is firstly identified based on its lustre. Lustre refers
both to the pearls’ brilliance and transparency - the way its surface reflects light, and its glow that emenates from the layers of nacre within. High lustre pearls are bright, transparent with a deep glow. It is mainly because of a thick coating of nacre. Our fresh water pearls are formed without a hard core hence they are all nacre pearls. They exhibit a gorgeous lustre with the shimmering, irridescent colors which appear to move and glitter when the pearls are turned. (This phenomenon is called orient).
Surface blemish level - surface blemish refers to the type and amount of blemish appearing on the surface of pearl. Most natural pearls have blemishes which separate them from immitation pearls. Blemishes include spots, cracks, scratch lines, holes. The cleaner the surface, the higher the pearl’s value.
Shape - All else being equal, the rounder or more even the shape, the better quality of the pearl. Perfectly round pearls with high lustre and clean surface are the most valuable ones. However there is a trend of potato shaped and baroque shaped pearls being embraced by fashion jewellery designers.
Grading pearls
|
Grade
|
A
|
AA
|
AAA
|
|
Lustre
|
Medium to good
|
Good to high
|
High
|
|
Nacre
|
Medium (0.25-0.35 mm)
|
Medium to thick (0.35 - 0.50mm)
|
Very thick (>0.05mm)
|
|
Blemishes
|
Light
|
Slight
|
Basically no visible blemish
|
|
Shape
|
Slightly off round to round
|
Mostly round or mostly even shaped (drop shaped)
|
Round
|
|
Matching
|
Good
|
Good to very good
|
Very good
|
|
