I offer today an abject apology to would be readers..in a whirl of Instagram, twitter and facebook my posting to this blog sadly slipped and slipped.

And I also apologise because this is going to be a bit of a rant. With a little time on my hands I spotted a pearl selling programme on a TV gem selling channel.

Can I please make very clear that these are grade D tahitians. This is not a perfect pearl.

Not round, not metallic and certainly not clean. note the huge flaws clearly visible on their studio demo pearl

What has me writing this is the claim that pearl professionals are buying these pearls. No-one who aspires to deal in decent pearls will be buying these . They are simply not good enough. Not good enough for Pearlescence certainly, and I sent these photos to a couple of pearl dealer friends and their comments cannot be included because readers are civilised people!

Look at all the flaws on this poor pearl…And this was the studio pearl

It got worse. This was held to be perfect, just a few marks. ‘Worth Bond Street’.

Supposedly a pair. Different size and colour

Different size and different colour. ‘Great pair’

Our Tahitian pearls may indeed be dearer, but I would not even look at pearls of this low quality in a wholesalers in Hong Kong, let alone pretend to you that they were the best possible. Yes, our pearls are dearer. But these show you why.

(They’ve moved on to south sea pearls now, but I’m too cross to watch!)