Want your
own Fotopage?
|
|
wholesale's FotoPage
By: wholesale wholesale
[Recommend this Fotopage] |
[Share this Fotopage]
| [Track this Fotopage]
|
|
[Archive]
|
|
|
|
| Friday, 12-Nov-2010 06:09 |
Email | Share |  | Bookmark |
|
Pearl Jewelry - The Story of Pearl Hunters
|
|
As long as pearl jewelry have been known to people, they have been a highly sought commodity for their beauty. It's only in recent times however that the industry has taken the hunt for the perfect pearl to a whole different level. Today, the shiny orbs that we see on in display in jewelry stores have actually almost always been grown in farms.
That's a far cry from the dangerous extraction and collection methods used before the invention of modern technology. In the past, not more than 100 years ago, the only way to retrieve pearls was by diving in lakes, floods and the ocean to pick them up, one at the time. The unfortunate divers who'se job it was to do this, were often poor and lured by the relative large sums they could get. The diver would sometimes have to dive as deep as 100 feet on one single breath of air. In order to preserve air and to stay submerged the longest, the divers would hold on to heavy stones on the way down.
Naturally, this dangerous activity was reserved for the desperate or the powerless - in many cases slaves or extremely poor peasents. Today, this method is all but obsolete in most places of the world. The cheaper cultured pearls have become popular and are many times the only pearls available to the consumer.
There are however still a few isolated areas that practice this old art of pearl diving. Some of the finest natural pearl speciments come from the gulf of Bahrain. Here, divers still risk their health to retrieve what are considered the top of the crop in the world. In fact, Bahrain wants no part of the sale of cultured pearls, banned from trade. Bahrain is one of the few places on earth that does an active job in trying to preserve the natural habitat and waters from pollution.
It's an interesting story and one that continues to fascinate buyers around the world. Somehow, the beauty of the pearl grows when it's been retrieved from the depth of the ocean.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Friday, 12-Nov-2010 05:48 |
Email | Share | | Bookmark |
|
Buying Pearl Jewelry Without Being Ripped Off
|
|
Buying pearl jewelry can be fun, exciting and confusing. Whether you're considering a gift of pearl jewelry for someone special or as a treat for yourself, take some time to learn the terms used in the industry. Here's some information to help you get the best quality pearl jewelry for your money, whether you're shopping in a traditional brick and mortar store or online.
Pearls
Natural or real pearls are made by oysters and other mollusks. Cultured pearls also are grown by mollusks, but with human intervention; that is, an irritant introduced into the shells causes a pearl to grow. Imitation pearls are man-made with glass, plastic, or organic materials.
Because natural pearls are very rare, most pearls used in jewelry are either cultured or imitation pearls. Cultured pearls, because they are made by oysters or mollusks, usually are more expensive than imitation pears. A cultured pearl's value is largely based on its size, usually stated in millimeters, and the quality of its nacre coating, which give it luster. Jewelers should tell your if the pearls are cultured or imitation. Some black, bronze, gold, purple, blue and orange pearls, whether natural or cultured, occur that way in nature; some, however, are dyed through various processes. Jewelers should tell you whether the colored pearls are naturally colored, dyed or irradiated.
Clams, oysters, mussels and many other mollusks with limy shells are known to produce pearls. But very few kinds yield gem pearls of jeweler's quality. The pearl is an abnormal growth of mother-of-pearl, or nacre, imbedded in the soft bodies of these shellfish. It is built up, layer upon layer, in the same way as nacre is added to the lining of the growing shell and always has the same color and luster. For example, over the country, hundreds of good-sized pearls are found each year in the oysters we eat. Unfortunately these have no commercial value regardless of whether they have been cooked or not because they are dull opaque white or purple like the shell of the parent oyster. In recent times almost all pearls of gem quality come from the oriental pearl oyster which has a bright shimmering translucent nacre.
A pearl starts growing when some irritating foreign substance such as a sand grain, bit of mud, parasite or other object becomes lodged in the shell-producing gland called the mantle. Pearls formed in the soft flesh where nacre can be added on all sides are most likely to be spherical and the most highly prized. By far the great majority are flattened or variously distorted and have little value. Size, color, luster and freedom from flaws are other essential qualities. Unlike other gems, such as diamonds, pearls have an average life of only about 50 years. In time the small amount of water in a pearl's make-up is lost and its surface cracks. Because they are mostly lime, necklaces which are worn often are injured by the acid secretions of the human skin.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Thursday, 17-Sep-2009 07:54 |
Email | Share | | Bookmark |
|
Yuchengcos still own PLDT shares worth P4.7B
|
|
MANILA, Philippines—An official of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) said the Yuchengco family did not lose its stake in the country’s largest telecommunications firm even after the family sold its shares in the holding company that controlled PLDT because part of the compensation package involved about 2 million direct PLDT shares now worth P4.7 billion.
PLDT director Ray Espinosa, the akoya pearl oyster counsel of PLDT chair Manuel V. Pangilinan, also disputed allegations that businessman Alfonso Yuchengco was coerced into giving up his stake in PLDT in 1998 by then President Joseph Estrada.
Espinosa said the Yuchengco group “did not lose its underlying shares even as it sold its PTIC (Philippine Telecommunications Investment Corp.) shares to the group of Pangilinan.” PTIC was then the single biggest stockholder in PLDT.
More importantly, Espinosa pointed out that the package paid to Yuchengco in exchange for his minority stake (18,720 PTIC shares) in PLDT had increased in value by about 80 percent since then.
“As consideration for the PTIC shares, Metro Pacific Assets Holdings Inc. paid and delivered to Y Realty Corp. a compensation package consisting of PLDT shares and cash totaling P2.61 billion,” Espinosa said.
The compensation package was broken down into a total of 2,017,650 PLDT common shares (with a value of P1,085 per share based on PLDT’s closing trading price at the Philippine Stock Exchange on Nov. 23, 1998) plus P424,036,931 in cash premium.
“The 2,017,650 PLDT shares paid and delivered to the wish pearl Yuchengco group are now worth P4.7 billion based on (Wednesday’s) closing price of P2,330 per share,” he added.
Unsigned statement
Espinosa said these details “belie the unsigned statement being attributed to Ambassador Yuchengco that the ‘2,017,650 PLDT common shares … were taken from me in 1998.”’
He said Pangilinan’s group continued to sweeten the wish pearl gift pot for the Yuchengcos, agreeing that the latter’s Malayan Insurance Co. would insure two-thirds of the non-life insurance requirements of PLDT and that Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) would be a major banker of PLDT—arrangements that still continue.
“In fact, Malayan Insurance also handles the property insurance requirements of Smart Communications Inc. and the other subsidiaries of PLDT, and RCBC is now also a major banker of PLDT’s subsidiaries,” he said.
“Whoever circulated the unsigned statement to the press was obviously not privy to the detailed terms of the transaction and to the fact that MVP (Pangilinan) and his group continue to have very good relations with the Yuchengco family and their various businesses,” Espinosa said.
The PLDT director said the “good relations” between the Yuchengco family and Pangilinan and his group were demonstrated by the fact that Helen Y. Dee, a daughter of Yuchengco, remained a director of PLDT and for the last 11 years since the transaction took place had been part of the slate of directors nominated and voted by Pangilinan’s group. Reports from Daxim L. Lucas and Doris C. Dumlao
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Thursday, 17-Sep-2009 07:51 |
Email | Share | | Bookmark |
|
‘Ten people came to my office with 10 rifles’
|
|
Nick Joaquin (NJ): So no complaints against Ramos except that one. Erap?
Alfonso Yuchengco (AY): Disaster.
NJ: He was a disaster?
AY: For the country.
NJ: For business in particular?
AY: Ya.
NJ: In what way?
AY: All the corruption, all the scandals that he created. As you know, they were playing mahjong every night up to 3-4 o’clock in the morning.
NJ: You weren’t there?
AY: But I have big ears. And they were drinking, and then by 2 or 3 o’clock the people would go to him and ask him to sign and by that time he was so drunk he would just sign anything. And those are all big deals he would sign away.
NJ: In what other way was Erap disastrous to the Philippine economy?
AY: Well, all his decisions were wrong. For instance, in my personal case, I had to sell my stake in PLDT because he forced me to. Ten people came to my office with 10 rifles and Albert del Rosario, our current (He resigned in 2006–Ed.) Ambassador to Washington, and another fellow forced me to sell my stake.
So I had no choice. And then my other son was the christmas gifts one who signed the contract that night. They went to his house at 1 a.m., so he had to sign.
Virgilio F. Lacaba (VFL): Was there a threat?
AY: Ya, why will they bring rifles?
NJ: Why didn’t businesses do anything to get rid of Erap?
AY: They did. They did, People Power 2. That’s how we got rid of him.
NJ: Oh, come on. Tell me, what did you do to get rid of Erap?
AY: I participated in People Power 2.
NJ: People Power 2. It was never the ... man in the street.
AY: But how can the man in the christmas jewelry street do anything without money? Some businessmen were secretly financing them because they were afraid to come out in the open. How can you come out in the open against Estrada?
NJ: Businessmen help, but they don’t want to come out in the open.
AY: Pero out in the wish pearl jewelry open means ... ah, my life...
AY: You stop drinking. (laughter) Let’s finish Estrada. I think Estrada’s rule was about the worst for the Philippines, perhaps even worse than Marcos. At least Marcos was very intelligent, he was a lawyer. Although he did many bad things, they were all within legal limits. But Estrada, he didn’t care, especially, all those decrees that he signed, at 2 o’clock in the morning when he was dead drunk.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
[Archive]
|
|
 |
|
