fine
round pearls of one to two grains were valued at about fifty cents per
grain, the price increasing until those of twenty grains were
considered worth twenty dollars per grain. Second class pearls under
one grain, averaging half a grain, were sold for about five cents a
grain. The same grade about nine grains average, were worth about
sixty-five cents per grain.
A
third and fourth grade brought about twenty-five and fifty per cent,
less respectively. These prices, compared with those of London,
indicate that fine, large, round pearls commanded better prices then
in the East than they did in Europe. Seed pearls sold at Tahiti for ten
to fifteen dollars per pound. The island of Labuan, a British
possession in the East Indian archipelago, shipped pearls to Singapore
in the sixties at an average price of ten to fifteen cents per grain..
In 1871, 35 ounces of pearls shipped from Guayaquil were valued at
$100.00 per ounce.
As
in former times, at many places where the fishing is done by
independent naked divers, especially among the remote islands of the
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