Quality Pearl Jewelry - The Pearl Outlet

Pearls - Pearl Earrings - Fine Pearl Jewelry

CERTIFICATES/APPRAISALS Every item we sell comes with a Certificate of Guarantee describing the piece, its quality, and its retail value. Each certificate is prepared by a professional GIA certified pearl grading expert and qualifies as an appraisal for insurance purposes.

INDEPENDENT LAB APPRAISALS We offer a special service you will only find from The Pearl Outlet. We will, at your request, send your purchase to an independent GIA certified lab for a Preliminary Report or for a full Insurance Appraisal. Rates are as follows:

Preliminary Report: $58
Independent Appraisal: $120

PRESENTATION All of our items come in professional presentation boxes that are as nice, or better, than what you would expect from your local jeweler. They will make a lasting impression when given as a gift and are perfect for storing your pearls in for generations to come.

QUALITY The quality of a pearls is judged on several factors. These factors are luster, blemishes, matching, shape, and nacre thickness. Nacre thickness is crucial to the value of a pearl since a pearl with thin nacre will not last. A pearl with no blemishes is often a sign of a poor quality pearl since the thicker the nacre is, the more chance of blemishes. On the other hand, a very high quality pearl will have a combination of thick nacre, no blemishes, high luster, and good matching.

The Pearl Outlet uses a letter grading scale from A to AAA. Following is a table describing what each quality rating means:

Pearl Outlet Grade	Description
AAA	Top 1% of Harvest Luster: Excellent Blemishes: 96% Or Better Blemish Free Matching: Excellent Shape: Round Nacre: Thick
AA+	Top 5% of Harvest Luster: Excellent Blemishes: 90-95% Blemish Free Matching: Excellent Shape: Round Nacre: Thick
AA	Top 20% of Harvest Luster: Very Good Blemishes: 80-90% Blemish Free Matching: Very Good Shape: Round Nacre: Medium to Thick
A	Top 50% of Harvest Luster: Good Blemishes: Moderate to Light Matching: Good Shape: Round Nacre: Medium
B to C	Lower 50% of Harvest Commercial Quality (Not sold here.) Luster: Poor Blemishes: Moderate to Heavy Matching: Poor Shape: Off-round to Near Round Nacre: Poor

The above scale is for Akoya saltwater, South Sea, and Tahitian pearls. Note that freshwater pearls are graded differently because of thier roundness.

HOW WE MAINTAIN SUCH LOW PRICES The reason we can sell our pearl jewelry at such low prices is our ability to fly around the world and to buy directly from the major sources, without going through a secondary distributor. Being able to buy them like this, allows us to purchase the pearls for dramatically lower prices, and sometimes sell them for them for less than wholesale. Jewelry stores, who often buy from outlets like us, typically pay about twice our cost for their pearls, and their markup is usually 400 to 600 percent, putting them at or near our list prices.

HOW WE PRICE OUR PEARLS Our retail prices are based on independent appraisals done by Sharon Wakefield, BSChe, GG, ISA-CAPP. Wakefield, a widely respected gemologist and appraiser, holds a Graduate Gemologist (GG) diploma from the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) and is a Certified Appraiser of Personal Property through the International Society of Appraisers. Note that, while our retail prices are based on these independent appraisals, not every piece has been appraised due to the extravagant cost that would be involved in doing so.