Edisons or just really big freshwaters

[Susan7639]

Hello, complete newbie here but I have fallen in love with the first thing I saw on this forum-- Baby Nurse's graduated white Edison necklace. Here is my question- I see large freshwater pearls on many site that are the same (wish) size as the one in Baby Nurses's necklace (9.2-12.2 mm) but they are not called "Edison". So my question is is Edison the same as "really big freshwater pearl". And any ideas on where to shop other than Pearl Paradise (they are currently teaching for me in HK) Thank you so much!

 

[dk168]

I am no expert, however, as far as I am aware, "Edisons" is a brand of bead-nucleated CFWPs.

CFWPs are normally tissue-nucleated.

Hopefully the experts will come along soon to offer their advice.

DK

 

[pearlsngems]

"Edison" is the name given by Grace Pearl to their in-body bead-nucleated freshwater pearls. Grace's Edison pearls are high quality pearls.

Undoubtedly it is the goal for all in-body bead nuked fwp pearls to be smooth and round, but most are not-- ripples, for example. I've seen poor grade ripples at T J Maxx, even.

Here are two articles about these pearls from 2011:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/02/business/global/chinas-high-quality-pearls-enter-the-mass-market.html?_r=0

http://pacificpearls.us/in-body-bead-nucleated-pearls/

 

[BWeaves]

Edison is the brand name of a particular company's high quality large bead nucleated freshwater pearls.

And Baby Nurse's strand is a very rare and good strand.

I've asked Pearl Paradise to look for another one like it for me, but I'm afraid it still may be more than I can spend if they find one.

 

[NacreLover]

Some companies call the bead nucleated freshwater's Ming pearls. The shopping channel QVC has different qualities of Ming's for sale. If you choose to buy large tissue nucleated they are apt to be off round since there is no round bead inside to influence the shape, unless you buy really high quality pearls. PP was one of the first vendors to offer strands of Edison pearls before the Grace company jacked up the prices to "out of this world price points" This has hurt Grace. Also competition, who have decided to grow them and charge less.

 

[Susan7639]

Thank you all! Just ordered Edisons from PP with the 20% off code I found on-line. they had one white strand of really large ones lying around, lucky me!

 

[pearlsngems]

I'm sure they will be amazing on you. Please post a neck shot when you get them!

 

[Pearlescence]

Grace sells some of their Edisons to other pearl suppliers, who also sell Mings and just plain bead nucleated freshwaters. What was a brand name is becoming somewhat generic for good quality bead nucleated perls but Edisons don't always get onto the market via Grace and some Mings are of comparable quality.
In general top quality bead nucleated pearls were expensive and scarce due to farm problems. A lot of what was about in HK this month was last year's stock and harvest so it's been well picked over

 

[pearlsngems]

...
In general top quality bead nucleated pearls were expensive and scarce due to farm problems. A lot of what was about in HK this month was last year's stock and harvest so it's been well picked over

That is interesting---do you have any idea what sort of problems the farms had?

 

[Pearlescence]

Yes, but I can't say

 

[cmd2014]

I found this article interesting: http://ourworld.unu.edu/en/chinas-pearl-industry-an-indicator-of-ecological-stress

As for Edisons vs large freshwater pearls, there is a difference. Edisons (or Mings) are bead nucleated, so good ones will be round. Large freshwater pearls are not bead nucleated, so they will rarely be as round as pearls which are bead nucleated like Akoyas, Tahitians or south sea pearls. If you look closely at a large freshwater pearl strand, you will see that at least some of the pearls will be a bit egg shaped.