Today was another day to justify coming all the way here and not just ordering in. Poking around in the far corners of the premises of one of the…if not the…biggest freshwater wholesaler i found a bag of what looked ,at first glance,like a  bag of very spotty and lumpy tahitians.

But they were big. I’ll always look at big so I looked inside and there was also lustre. Big and lustre is good so i hauled the bag to the table for a look and, among the very spotty and pimply drops and weird lumps were enough fairly clean rounds for a necklace. Not clean by any means but shiny and lovely colours and sizes between 15mm and 18mm

Multicoloured and HUGE Tahitian pearls. The surfaces are a bit marked but the lustre and colour and size sort of cover that

This photo catches the colour and lustre best.

Arranged in a necklace with four spares for length

These pearls are undrilled so I’ll drill them carefully into the flaws to minimise the marks.  It’s going to be an amazing necklace for someone.

The funny upshot of my finding these pearls was that three other dealers immediately went off to try to find similar bags and all wanted to check the bag contents once I had finished with it