358 THE BOOK OF THE PEARL
the
time of Marco Polo. However, the world over, there is a feeling that if
things are sent to the greatest market there will be an opportunity
for disposing of them at the greatest price. Therefore, the larger
number of parcels of exceptionally fine pearls are sent to the London
market, a few of them going to Paris, the cable, often within a few
days after their arrival, informing the sender of the acceptance or
rejection of a parcel, or of a new offer which is often accepted. In
this market they are acquired by the dealers, who frequently exhibit
many times before the lot is purchased.
Pearls
from a fishery are in many cases of mixed quality ; that is to say,
they are of different sizes and varying grades of perfection as regards
skin, color, and orient. These parcels are often sold directly on
offers to dealers, but generally they are sold by brokers who show the
various parcels to the dealers, each of the latter in turn making his
offer on that portion of the parcel which is of most value to him. Thus
a single dealer may want one pearl, a dozen, or even twenty or more, to
complete a great necklace, or else to add to, or improve the necklace,
by better graduation or by increasing the evenness of the color. When
the broker receives enough offers to give him the desired price for the
entire parcel, the sale is consummated, and each one who has made an
offer and who has sealed his particular parcel until his offer is
accepted or rejected, receives his portion. Pearls do not grow in the
form of necklaces, although they are frequently seen in this form only,
and to create a large necklace means not only the use of the pearls of
one fishery alone, but it often requires a selection from pearls of
various sizes, the product of many fisheries.
It
is needless to say that even the shrewdest dealers do not always
succeed in their purchases of lots which, are to be broken up when the
proper number of bids are obtained.
When
the pearl revival came in 1898 there was a sudden and rapid upward
tendency in the prices, because at that time, in England, money could
be borrowed upon a very low rate of interest,—as low as 3 per
cent.,—and it was a temptation to a number of young men to enter as
dealers into the pearl trade. The result was that a number of new
stocks were created, not for a regular, but for a speculative demand,
and this tended to advance the price spasmodically, rather than
gradually, as it would have risen by regular consumption. However,
when the foreign market became higher, the demand for pearls was not as
great as had been anticipated, and there was a sudden adjustment of
prices and a readjustment of the pearl stocks, resulting in the
elimination of a certain number of speculative dealers ; and,
notwithstanding the state of the fisheries, pearls have not advanced so
rapidly in the past two years as they did from 1898 to 1905.
