OH MY GOD.
THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH FOR SHARING ALL OF THESE WITH US!!!!!!!!!
I cannot WAIT to look at these properly after work today. OMG.
I am so totally jealous that you got to meet Kan!!!! I'll get out there one of these days, I'm sure he'll remember you
Seriously. I'm smiling looking at those yellow invoice papers
Cause in this photo my eyes go to the NW first and want to stay there. Yeah, the granpearl is def more lustrous. You can see that on both sides of the strand. Assuming your photos represent what you saw IRL (which I know is a can of worms all on its own). But my eyes prefer what my eyes prefer. Shrug.
So. White akoya have my heart.
A big YES to strand orientation relative to lighting making a bizarrely big difference. I’ve noticed this exact same thing. And I always do exactly what you did - request long strands be switched, or earrings cards be flipped upside down.
The granpearl, I can see the greenishness. The entire strand looks darker-bodied but warmer toned to me than all of the others. I know the darker body helps with contrastiness, just because our human eyes have evolved to be sort of contrast stupid… The NW looks coolest-toned to me. I know I said it earlier but I absolutely love that you came home with what your eyes liked best in-person, not The Granpearl That You Were Supposed To Like Best - you know what you’re looking at and you let your eyes choose, that sort of educated decision can just never ever be wrong
And a NW that’s THAT evenly-coloured and THAT lustrous, and also very clean and not-overly-green - you hit all sorts of jackpot with that one. Seriously. I’m zero surprised Kan couldn’t make another. Every NW I’ve ever seen, including my own bracelet, well, without the bleaching and pinking to even body and overtone out a little there’s just so much more variance. No joke, that might just be the rarest strand of the lot!!
Oh and that poor Ten-nyo down there. LOL. I just quickie photoshopped the granpearl and the Gennoy next to each other and - ouch.
Mr. Seki and Yy’s preference for cool and light-bodied has totally rubbed off on me. And you too, looks like
In this pic the granpearl and the gem with flaws look to have basically the same body colour and tone, just that the gem with flaws has a significantly stronger pink overtone... Do you think that's a reasonable description, if you recall?
I bookmarked this thread!!
So. White akoya have my heart.
A big YES to strand orientation relative to lighting making a bizarrely big difference. I’ve noticed this exact same thing. And I always do exactly what you did - request long strands be switched, or earrings cards be flipped upside down.
The granpearl, I can see the greenishness. The entire strand looks darker-bodied but warmer toned to me than all of the others. I know the darker body helps with contrastiness, just because our human eyes have evolved to be sort of contrast stupid… The NW looks coolest-toned to me. I know I said it earlier but I absolutely love that you came home with what your eyes liked best in-person, not The Granpearl That You Were Supposed To Like Best - you know what you’re looking at and you let your eyes choose, that sort of educated decision can just never ever be wrong
And a NW that’s THAT evenly-coloured and THAT lustrous, and also very clean and not-overly-green - you hit all sorts of jackpot with that one. Seriously. I’m zero surprised Kan couldn’t make another. Every NW I’ve ever seen, including my own bracelet, well, without the bleaching and pinking to even body and overtone out a little there’s just so much more variance. No joke, that might just be the rarest strand of the lot!!
Oh and that poor Ten-nyo down there. LOL. I just quickie photoshopped the granpearl and the Gennoy next to each other and - ouch.
Mr. Seki and Yy’s preference for cool and light-bodied has totally rubbed off on me. And you too, looks like
In this pic the granpearl and the gem with flaws look to have basically the same body colour and tone, just that the gem with flaws has a significantly stronger pink overtone... Do you think that's a reasonable description, if you recall?
The gem with flaws is interesting. They're definitely small flaws, but they're numerous, especially in comparison to the pristine pearls adjacent. Do these flaws register at all in-person? This is such a magnified photo, but I wonder if they lead the eyes to read the skin as "less glossy"? Like fine scratching does?
So this is interesting. Here in the US vendors tend to grade pearls and then price by grade. All pearls within the grade cost the same. But it looks like - in Japan - all the vendors you went to priced each strand individually? Rather than the grade-mapped price buckets we're used to here?
In this photo - I can see that the bottom two strands are of higher quality than the top. But why is the bottom strand more pricey than the middle? I'm very curious because my eyes definitely prefer the middle!
This photo confirms the middle strand is the most high-contrast...
But maybe it's also the most blemished?
Or maybe the Japanese pearl trade doesn't value high contrast as much as we Americans do? Like, maybe local preferences have evolved to prioritize high gloss reflectance over high contrast?
So. White akoya have my heart.
A big YES to strand orientation relative to lighting making a bizarrely big difference. I’ve noticed this exact same thing. And I always do exactly what you did - request long strands be switched, or earrings cards be flipped upside down.
The granpearl, I can see the greenishness. The entire strand looks darker-bodied but warmer toned to me than all of the others. I know the darker body helps with contrastiness, just because our human eyes have evolved to be sort of contrast stupid… The NW looks coolest-toned to me. I know I said it earlier but I absolutely love that you came home with what your eyes liked best in-person, not The Granpearl That You Were Supposed To Like Best - you know what you’re looking at and you let your eyes choose, that sort of educated decision can just never ever be wrong
And a NW that’s THAT evenly-coloured and THAT lustrous, and also very clean and not-overly-green - you hit all sorts of jackpot with that one. Seriously. I’m zero surprised Kan couldn’t make another. Every NW I’ve ever seen, including my own bracelet, well, without the bleaching and pinking to even body and overtone out a little there’s just so much more variance. No joke, that might just be the rarest strand of the lot!!
Oh and that poor Ten-nyo down there. LOL. I just quickie photoshopped the granpearl and the Gennoy next to each other and - ouch.
Mr. Seki and Yy’s preference for cool and light-bodied has totally rubbed off on me. And you too, looks like
In this pic the granpearl and the gem with flaws look to have basically the same body colour and tone, just that the gem with flaws has a significantly stronger pink overtone... Do you think that's a reasonable description, if you recall?
.
I feel like this statement unlocks the sort of revelation that you would never ever ever learn about unless you both have an especial eye for pearls and are able to physically go to both geographies and compare with your own eyes. People pay a lot of money for this sort of market analysis - but here on PS it's free!
Oh this actually makes total sense to me! What your eyes see and what the literature says your eyes "should" see, I mean - they match!!
That poor tennyo indeed
Funny fact is, I didn‘t realize my NW necklace was also tennyo until I had paid for it and Kan was packing the certificate
Ohhh man. I mean my pearls are Ten-nyo too!! We just made sure we've got the upper end of the Ten-nyo range
Edit - Oh, and I'm totally serious, I will haunt you if you ever even think of selling that NW strand. Of all of them I feel like THAT one must be the truly one-of-a-kind rarity - so so so special. No selling that one!!
Think I better hold off on that one 
The gem with flaws is interesting. They're definitely small flaws, but they're numerous, especially in comparison to the pristine pearls adjacent. Do these flaws register at all in-person? This is such a magnified photo, but I wonder if they lead the eyes to read the skin as "less glossy"? Like fine scratching does?
Sent you a few IG messages to illustrate this but wanted to share some with other’s here considering buying Gem Luster with minor flaws from Takahashi.
Here is the worst surface pearl in the necklace:
Here it is at various distances:
Most pearls of the 47 in the necklace have decent surfaces. Here are the worst 5, with the one above amongst them:
That worst-pearl is the only one I can see the surface flaws from at a distance of 10 inches (I used a ruler) since it noticeably impacts the gloss and shapes of reflections. It’s one of the larger pearls at 8.7-8.8mm in the middle of the necklace. When I go have knots put in soon, it will definitely go next to the clasp behind the neck. Thankfully it’ll only cause a .2-.3mm jump in size to the next pearl so not a big deal in that position.
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