Market Report With Jennifer — pearl

Since my early days as a journalist, I’ve loved cultured pearls. Something about them spoke to me, including their rich colors and exotic overtones (such as peacock in Tahitians), their luster, and their variety of shapes. Baroque or circle shapes were easy to afford and that’s how I started collecting: I bought what I thought was pretty and could afford. Today, both my personal acquisitions and my taste for more exotic types have grown—so much so I was tapped by the board of directors of the Cultured Pearl Association of America to take this role of both writing about cultured...

New York City. Aug. 23, 2019. While pearls weren’t the only gem present in jewels at this year’s American Gem Trade Association’s (AGTA) Spectrum & Cutting Edge Awards, which took place Aug. 6, they were (naturally) among my favorites!

Chapel Hill, N.C. Aug 12, 2019. It was a Monet exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2007 that got Travis Kukovich, owner of William Travis Jewelers in Chapel Hill, N.C., and a CPAA member, thinking differently about parasols.

New York City, Aug. 1, 2019. It was spring of 2017 when Aziz Basalely, founder of Eliko Pearl and president of the CPAA, first spied maki-e and mosaic pearls—lacquer and 24k gold powdered paint and abalone shell tiles, respectively—and they’ve been in his inventory ever since.