Wholesale Silver Jewelry:Industry News May 2007

The Perfect Pearl
A pearl is a beautiful thing: lustrous, natural, perfect in it's own organic way. But do you know the how and why of pearls? We've added some new pearl designs, so why not chat them up a bit?

Until the late 1800's, pearls were an oddity. They were an extremely rare find, and round pearls were even more unusual.

In 1905, the pearl universe shifted. The father of modern cultured pearls is Kokichi Mikimoto. He produced the world's first cultured spherical pearl by inventing a technique to insert a bit of shell into the body of an oyster. The shell causes irritation and the oyster secretes a coating called nacre around the nucleus.

Depending on how long the oyster is left to produce nacre, pearls can vary in size from 2mm to more than 12mm. Typically, the seed is left in the oyster for four years to create the proper size and appearance. Quality is determined by color, lustre, smoothness, roundness and size.

Today, most pearls are freshwater pearls. China has become the major exporter of pearls of all shapes, sizes and colors. As a result of their industrialization and sheer volume of production, pearl prices have declined dramatically over the past 10 years.

The most expensive pearls on the market today are South Seas varieties in black, grey and peacock.

Silver Prices Update
Periodically I like to update readers on the status of silver prices and market trends.

Since the beginning of the year, the market has been relatively stable. Prices have fluctuated from as low as about $12.25 per ounce, to almost $14.50 in early March.

The market closed today, May 4, 2007, at $13.40 with a slight downward trend the past week. Often we see a dip in precious metals prices when the stock market rallies.

As you may have heard, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been charting new highs recently. I would have hoped to see more of a dip in silver prices, but I suppose we should be happy with any drop, given the run-up in recent years.

Forecasting precious metals prices is a dark art, and nobody really gets it right all the time. It's a speculative, often emotionally-driven market that often defies logic.

For my part, I'll just stick with reporting historical trends rather than hazarding a guess as to what will happen in the future.