Ignorance and Blame ca. 1993

Fuji Voll's letter to the Editor of Pearl World, the late Richard "Bo" Torrey, ca1993                         {annotations in 2024 by Fuji Voll in crly braces}

With great interest I read your twin rants {editorials} the perennially sad state of the Japan akoya market, and about phasing out the required
Japan government export inspection in favor of,an optional one
to be provided by JPEA. I share your view that, technically, Japan
could produce sounder pearls of more long-lasting beauty, and that
dealing in them could be more interesting and rewarding if they did.
Defining decent quality and stemming the tide of junk has been a Canute
job from the start. We cannot expect an inspector's finding to mean more
than "given the market's insistence on thin~coated pearls that have been
bleached to the edge of dissolution, these are RELATIVELY ok".

Like you, I don't personally set much store by them, but seeing so many bunches with tags {they read Japan Pearls - passed} that someone obviously bothered to peel off and re-use suggests to me that someone believes in them, and that some form of grading at least more impartial than the seller's is craved by many who feel they need to deal in pearls but that they know too little to rely on their own judgement.

Scrapping the inspection at point of export will leave these folks more
at their suppliers' mercy; they may quit carrying pearls as a result.
I would say a quarter million (US) and a few more tags are a bargain to
keep that from happening. And the junk can be sent airfreight, it will
no longer be necessary to "smuggle" it out of Japan in suitcases.

To understand my objection to your blaming producers for debasing their
product, recall for a moment that akoya pearl cultivation created something
that was previously imaginary: round pearls. Because roundness is so
easily determined, by anyone, it became the selling point to obliterate
all other considerations. Not only lay people but also an appalling
number of resellers will tell you that if an akoya pearl is not
"perfectly" round, it is no good at all.

I suggest it is the massed ignorance of consumers and resellers that compels Japan to produce so much thin-coated, short-lived product, not sinister conspiracies of industry and government in Japan. I do not speak for either, but I am sure what I told Eve Alfille (in response to her question, at a Pearl Society meeting a couple of years ago, why so many bad akoya pearls are being made) is true:"... if you can sell the baroque and off-round
pearls that will be the norm if nacre thickness is increased, Japan will produce them for you." Easy as cubic watermelons.

What I find noteworthy is that SSP's, basically akoya technology transplanted to the superior animals available in warmer waters, seem to have a far better-informed audience quite prepared to appreciate the variety of shapes and colors they typically have. By contrast, the akoya market seems to be ruled by people who neither know nor care about how pearls
are produced, and have great contempt for their customers' ability to discern quality, or indeed anything beyond 1) round? 2) white enough? 3) fits retail price points (for watches)?.

It was no different 30 years ago (see enclosed clippings * from my father, Rudi Voll) and if it is to change, I believe it is up to you and me, to Fred {Ward, RIP, of Gem Books fame} and Dave {Federman, currently Editor in Chief of Colored Stone Magazine} in short to all of us
here in the major consumers' societies to whom such ill-informed people may eventually look for guidance when they become aware of what poor value they are getting for their customers' money.  

{30 years ago, David Federman wrote "Gem Profile" column, in the historic "Modern Jeweler".  It was famous as the kiss of death for every Gem he Profiled. He did one on Flame (exclusively Chinese in-mantle bead nucleated) pearls.  He also  improved on my transliteration from the Cantonese Yim Chue, (炎球 flame pearls/gems/balls)  and naming them Fireballs forever after.}

My hope is that, with China products satisfying more of the lower price points, the Japan akoya can become more like SSP in all ways except size.  If we can find a way to explain to folks what akoya pearls are, I think producers will provide both the information and advertising money to reach a wide enough audience. They don't know how to pull off such a feat {as evinced by their advertising in that era) but are rightly fearful any attempt could backfire... the product could easily go out of vogue if there is too much negative publicly about it.

But more people know more about pearls than ever before, and I believe
eventually truth will prevail. If you are willing to be the first to be outspoken about consumer-side ignorance and arrogance, I will be of whatever assistance I can in finding people on the producer~side who will cooperate... after all, it is not possible to be a producer without having all the knowledge that far too many buyers still lack.

by Fuji Voll. It probably never saw print. { comments added Dec 2024 }

a propos * clippings, you can read them here.