For my anniversary, I was thinking of purchasing a single pearl, putting it on a necklace, and giving it to my wife (in addition to other gifts). Each year, I could add a pearl, thus getting me out of having to be too original each anniversary!
I googled “Loose pearls”, which overloaded me with information- Different types, wildly different prices- so I thought I might head over here and see if anyone could help a hubby out.
I’m looking for a Pearl that came from an oyster living in salt water. Does this have a specific name? How much should I look at paying for a single pearl? How are they sized?
This isn’t helpful but I remember this from the old “Burns and Allen” radio show.
George) What would you like for our 15th anniversary
Gracie) Oh anything would be fine
George) Remember our first anniversary I bought you a single pearl and a string and told you each year I’d add to it.
Gracie) That was nice
George)Would you like some more of that?
Gracie) Oh no George, that string is already much too long.
i believe this is a somewhat popular gift for wee lasses. you get them a pearl when they are born and each birthday there after. they have a nice string when they are 18.
any major jewerly store should be able to help you out with this. they are sized by the mm, they come in many colours. non-salt water pearls are called river or freshwater, all others should be salt water. the price goes up by the amount of pearl covering the “seed”.
there are places where you can buy an oyster(s) and gut it for your own search and find pearl. that is kinda fun. the down side is you would have to find somewhere to drill the hole to string it, and the sizes wouldn’t match in the following years.
We looked into doing this, in the early 90s - the intention being buying a new pearl for our nieces on each major event in their lives. The downside - from what several jewelers said - was that it was difficult to match on size, quality and color doing it that way, and would be far more expensive in the long run.
We wound up just buying whole strands, and putting them aside for the girls.
