News You Can Bruise for 2004 October 4

Permalink [Comments] (4) Mon Oct 04 2004 10:13 Pearls Of Great Size:

In the Colossal Cave adventure you open a colossal oyster to reveal a colossal pearl. There's also a huge pearl in Steinbeck's The Black Pearl. If such a pearl did exist, would it really be that valuable? A marginally bigger chunk of gold is marginally more valuable because it's divisible, but pearls are used in their entirety for decoration. There must be a point beyond which marginally larger pearls stop being marginally more valuable. Clearly this happens well beyond the point where marginally larger pearls become marginally tackier.
Comments:

Posted by Brian Danger Hicks at Mon Oct 04 2004 14:58

The thing I always wondered about pearls was why nobody cares that they don't have truely natural pearls, but jewlers and whatnot are getting all pissy that you can buy gem-quality man-made diamonds now.

Also, I had to keep myself from saying "perl" instead of "pearl". It was hard.

Posted by Leonard at Mon Oct 04 2004 15:34

I also had difficulty not talking about whether it was really worth it to make Perl larger.

The easy answer to your query is that the pearl trade isn't controlled by a vicious cartel that artificially mantains scarcity. I don't know what the real answer is, but it's probably somewhat related.

Posted by Frances at Mon Oct 04 2004 16:11

I suspect pearls are like diamonds, sizewise. Anybody can buy a diamond under a karat. A .99 diamond is worth much less than a karat, so that's what people go for. After a karat, the price increases exponentially rather than on a continuous scale. However, the tackiness increases exponentially also. Have you seen the website of the company which will make a diamond out of the carbon from the ashes of your dearly departed? Then you can wear grandma as a ring or pendant!

Posted by Susie at Mon Oct 04 2004 19:05

Ok, First, Eew! Second, I would rather have a real pearl and a fake diamond than the other way around (although you're right as far as cost go). Of course, I have a very big (but not exponentially tacky), real, pretty, diamond, but no pearls.

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