Fancy Pearls....... Help!? Questions/discussion

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DB junkie

DB junkie

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Jan 27, 2007
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Wondering if the fancy Pearl experts can chime in on a few questions........

Five star Pearls..... How long does it take for these "dots" to appear in the perimeter of the spots? IF a ray has these spots is it a five star no doubt, OR is there other criteria that makes them 5 star? What exactly are the standards?

Crocodiles.... Basically same questions... How do you know if you have one? What are the criteria? Is this based solely on base color, or are there other "traits" crocs posses?

Are they either one or the other or do they both just describe traits? If just traits can one ray posses both traits or is 5 star something that just usually comes as standard equipment on a croc?

I understand these are just grading terms, and individuals differ, but these terms have always made a lot more sense (to me at least) then the whole Marble grading system.

Are these things in the US? Wondering just how common these things are or aren't.

What kind of money could one expect to pay for such a specimen?

I know this kind of stuff's been discussed here before but I'm unable to dig anything up, not sure if the search function is messed up again or what, but "search" > Al :cry:

Of course pica always make it easier to understand!!!! ;)

Thanks in advance for any contributions here, and look forward to some enlightenment :)

:popcorn:
 
Same as any other rays.
And I think your directing your questions to Richard as he's pretty much the only guy with this real quality of pearls
 
all of these terms depend on whether you are a 'lumper' or a 'splitter'.
imo these are superficial hobby terms designed to make something fairly ordinary into something exotic in order to inflate the price. Pearl ray prices are significantly lower than they were, even tho they are not a 'legal' quota ray .
Crocodile was ( as I recall) just a darker morph.
5 star was a family pop band from the 80's
 
The really nice pearls came from wildcaught strains . Many moons ago pearls were a pricey ray. The Asian "thia" ones are all crappy pearls and or will turn into broken patterns. This is probably due to the fact they're all rooted from the same few rays ,either bad quality or not pure bred. The wild pearl ray is still one of the rarest rays in the hobby , if you look at the pics in books all the wild specimens are superior . I was told the thia breeders started with only a few or one ray.

It's exactly like any other rays ?? Theirs nothing to look for. Some are better looking than others.just like the other white rays from brazil they start brown and lighten as they grow up .
I'll know soon enough :)
 
calgaryflames said:
The wild pearl ray is still one of the rarest rays in the hobby , if you look at the pics in books all the wild specimens are superior . I was told the thia breeders started with only a few or one ray.
Click to expand...

could you point us in the right direction regarding this as im sure there are more than one other asking the same or similar question ?

thanks :)
 
DB junkie said:
Wondering if the fancy Pearl experts can chime in on a few questions........

Five star Pearls..... How long does it take for these "dots" to appear in the perimeter of the spots? IF a ray has these spots is it a five star no doubt, OR is there other criteria that makes them 5 star? What exactly are the standards?

Crocodiles.... Basically same questions... How do you know if you have one? What are the criteria? Is this based solely on base color, or are there other "traits" crocs posses?

Are they either one or the other or do they both just describe traits? If just traits can one ray posses both traits or is 5 star something that just usually comes as standard equipment on a croc?

I understand these are just grading terms, and individuals differ, but these terms have always made a lot more sense (to me at least) then the whole Marble grading system.

Are these things in the US? Wondering just how common these things are or aren't.

What kind of money could one expect to pay for such a specimen?

I know this kind of stuff's been discussed here before but I'm unable to dig anything up, not sure if the search function is messed up again or what, but "search" > Al :cry:

Of course pica always make it easier to understand!!!! ;)

Thanks in advance for any contributions here, and look forward to some enlightenment :)

:popcorn:
Click to expand...

Pearls are like leopoldi.

At 40+ cm they will often start morphing. Leos turn into eclipse while pearls get the the "5 star pearl" pattern - some turn out better than others.

Here is an example. My friend martins big female pearl (45cm+). It looked "normal/standard" before it started morphing. Most will keep morphing until they look... less good.

Female.

525482_445883448815136_447402063_n.jpg

The term crocodile were used by some exporters before the ban. It reffered to very light animals - almost white.

Its pretty old and few people use it. I still like it though.

The asians just call them white pearls.

553755_406434789369010_100000074782181_1565786_1154894091_n.jpg


I dont know of any grading system. They are still pretty rare. It might come later, who knows.

About the US stocks: No idea about the white animals. But there must be some old "star" pearls out there.

There is a guy in europe who just imported some white animals. Lets hope he gets em breeding. ;)

525482_445883448815136_447402063_n.jpg
 
The reason I ask is cause my Pearl has small white spots popping up in the perimeter of some of the dots. Starting at the base of the tail and slowly moving forward. I know these dots were NOT there last year. He's about a foot across so I'm assuming they are what I think they are........ :)

Anders, I hope you're still nagging on Richard about putting together a shipment for us over here...... There's a guy over here with an import license, and there's plenty of demand...... :)

And thank you for the reply. :)
 
As far as I remember, Richard has made a deal with a shipper.

So he should be ready to ship soon - if he isent alredy. :)

Old/big pearls:

[video=youtube;dN3m3n995os]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN3m3n995os[/video]
 
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