Ignorance and Blame in 1963
These 2 Japan Times news articles, flanking Rudolf Voll's letter to the editor, are reproduced verbatim below in a more legible form.
Dateline 6 September 1963 - Japan Times News Article
Buyers Hit Bad Pearls From Japan
Exporters of cultured pearls have received complaints from U.S. importers that many Japanese pearls have proved inferior quality, causing trouble for the buyers.
Some of the that complaints said the surface volute pattern of pearls had worn off in about a year. Some others said that the colored pearls had changed their tones with the lapse of time.
Officials of the Fishery Agency,Agriculture-Forestry Ministry, said some pearl producers might have drastically cut the time for processing pearls, which usually takes about one year, to only a month or two and dodged customs inspection for export of their hastily processed pearls.
The organization for promotion of export of pearls in Japan has asked the Fishery Agency to take steps to adjust the production of pearls through revision of the Pearl Industry Law.
The adjustment of production is being sought to check the output of inferior pearls and to stop falling prices overseas for Japanese pearls of special sizes. The price decline hast been caused by over-production.
Japan exports about nine tenths of its annual production of pearls.
Pearl exports have trebled in the past five years, from $16.499.000 worth in 1957 to $41,810,000 in 1962.
The United States takes 47 per cent of annual exports of Japanese pearls, with the remainder going to Hongkong, France; Italy, Canada and other nations.
Readers In Council,Japan Times Sep.13, 1963
To the Editor: By Rudolf Voll
Fearing that today's report : “Buyers Hit Bad Pearls" (Sept.9) may be leading to another Katz-case I feel it my duty to advise the public on the facts behind these claims.
Since 1938 in the cultured pearl business in Japan I sincerely state that in the case before us the buyer, not the seller, is the responsible party in this deplorable situation. Let me cite a typical case: the Japanese pearl exporter receives an order stating size, color, surface condition (needless to say, this is expected always to be perfectly clean) and the price.
The latter usually does not cover more than the lowest grade, and the exporter informs the customer of his inability to supply him with the merchandise conforming to all details of his order. The client will then agree that the goods don't have to be of such high quality, as long as they are clean and round. Under no circumstances will he raise the price, as in the case of the U.S. market to which the production is mainly geared, pearls are dispensed with bargain-base-ment sales techniques (save some) which favor the $19.95, $39.95 and $99.95 pattern.
The manufacturer therefore cannot make these order-made pearls without disregard for his ability and ethics, which leads to the production of "pearls" which are not considered such in knowledgeable circles. It is totally wrong to blame the producer for inferior pearls; he can either refuse the order or quit the pearl business.
Of course, he is partner to a conspiracy which eventually will destroy the pearl industry, but what can a small fisherman of Shima Hanto do, when he cannot sell his fine pearls above production cost, except give the customer less than he would like to, and that can only be accomplished by shortening the time period that the nuclei spend inside the oyster. This, against your report, requires a minimum of a year, not "one or : two months;" the desirable time for large nuclei is three years.
Decreasing the time, however, minimizes the rate of surface deformation of pearls and is the most cherished result of this “instant” pearl growing process that furthermore keep the pearls light colored. Another pre-requisite and stipulation of most orders from the U.S. The resulting product, inferior as it is from the expert's point of view, perfectly matches the public's imagination of what a pearl should look like.
While Europeans, long acquainted with pearls and knowing that few of them are round and flawless (the word pearl is Greek for tear, i.e. indicating a nonspherical object) insist on pearls the nuclei of which are heavily coated with nacre, taking it as natural that there always be some imperfections, as pearls are grown by natural process involving no polishing, America's shoppers' demands are less tolerant; to them physical perfection is paramount and an almost uncovered bead of pig-toe shell - (nucleus), clean and round, is the thing.
Concerning the claimants' objections toward the changing colors, it too is a direct result of his order specifications, that disregard entirely the facts of pearl life. The majority of all pearls have dark spots and are either creme or of greenish color, unwanted by the U.S. consumer. It is perhaps a little known fact that most natural (or "genuine". as they were called for centuries) pearls were bleached by Indian merchants, using peroxide, to bring their wares nearer to the adored pink and white color ideal. Hence, pearls always had to be treated to be acceptable to the fact-ignoring consumer.
The recent claims, however, do not mean that the buyers were receiving worse pearls than they have been ordering and receiving for many years, when the "sudare" trend of thinly-coated pearls started; on the contrary, treating pearls is now much better than when it started 10 years ago on a large scale.
The reason for their outcries now are the poor market conditions in New York, where travelers to Japan who shopped here, found that there were better pearls than they were offered back home for a decade and they now refuse to buy the “instant-made” sudare, (white and flawless). Of course it is in such time that the importers try to pass the buck back to the Japanese, now that the junk has been recognized as such, hoping to chisel out a refund.
Dateline 6 September 1963 - Japan Times News Article
Thin-Coated Pearls To Be Screened
Japanese pearl cultivatorshave decided to enforce the screening of inferior pearls for insuring higher quality before their products are shipped to market.
Yoshitaka Mikimoto, president of the National Federation Pearl Cultivator's Cooperative Association, said Monday that the association approved the enforcement screening of thin-coated pearls.
Thin-coated pearls, which look like ordinary pearls but their luster wears out soon, have been sorted out in export inspection but have been allowed to be sold on the domestic market.
Mikimoto said that this was the first action the nation's pearl cultivators have taken toward preventing the appearance of inferior quality pearls on the market.
The decision was in two parts.
First, the association will not. handle thin-coated pearls at its auctions, thus closing the channel for inferior pearls to the market.
Second, cultivators will voluntarily present thin-coated pearls priced higher than 750 per monme, which were refused at the auction, to the association at the rate of 30-monme for each. 10,000 oysters. The association will then dump them into the sea.
Mikimoto said that this step will not totally stamp out thin-coated pearls from the market, humber greaty reduce their number.
He said the association will strengthen the measure each year until finally all inferior quality pearls will disappear from the market.
There are 3,000 pearl cultivators throughout the nation.