There are some things never be appraised.

For some reasons, we always say it is not good that selecting pearls by only trusting a certificate.
Speaking of "Certificate" we usually imagine Diamond's certificates, but Pearl's certificates are absolutely different from Diamond's certificates.

As pearls are given by oyster, there are many things we can not appraise even by technology of the day.
For example,

1. Country of Origin

Any laboratories can not distinguish where the pearl came from.
Even along with Hanadama certificate, this does not mean the pearls are Japanese Akoya.

2. Natural or Dyed

Dyeing technique is ever-improving. Now not only pearl companys but also others have got in the works concerning pearl dyeing. In fact, there are some pearls with the certificate that mentions "these pearls are natural" even dyed with very good technique.

Also, in "Natural White" pearls, there are many treated pearls actually.

3. Kind of Pearls

No one can distinguish a pearl kind by non destructive inspection.

For example, Akoya pearls sized over 9mm are very rare, but when it comes to South Sea pearls, 9mm, 10mm pearls are normal sizes.

Recently, some of South Sea pearls are very similar to Akoya. Sometimes such South Sea pearls can be appraised by a laboratory as "Akoya", as long as the client say "This is Akoya". This is one of the reasons you can see a lot of "10mm" Japanese Akoya pearls at low prices. In large size Akoya, there is a statistical discrepancy between actual amount of crops and available in the market. Obviously, there are many of South Sea pearls turned into "Akoya".


As mentioned above, customers can not but trust the seller's conscience. Therefore, originally there were not any certificates for pearls but pearls were sold with seller's confidence.

We think this applies modern business.

"This pearl is with certificate." is not enough reason for proving it is actually good pearl. The most important thing befor buying pearls is to find a trustworthy shop which can explains "Why the pearl is good", "Why the pearl is expensive (cheap)."