Assael Collection: 14.8–16.6 mm Round Golden South Sea Pearl Necklace, 17 inches

Golden South Sea color

What Gold means

Golden South Sea pearls run from a soft, pale gold to a deep and saturated one. The color comes from the gold-lipped oyster and from the donor tissue used at nucleation. It is never dyed or coated.

Depth describes saturation, not quality. A lighter pearl with exceptional luster and a clean surface can be worth more than a darker one without them. Deep gold is simply the rarest, and when it arrives with fine luster and good shape it is among the most valuable cultured pearls in the world.

• Light Gold Soft and pale. About the warmth of 10 karat gold. Reads as a glow across the piece rather than as a color.
• Gold This piece. The color most people picture. Close to 14 karat gold, and the middle of the range.
• Rich Gold Noticeably deeper, nearer 18 karat. Uncommon, and the point at which color starts driving the price.
• Deep Gold The rarest. As saturated as 24 karat gold. Only a small part of any harvest reaches it, and matching a strand takes years.

The karat comparisons are there to give you something familiar to picture. Nothing about a pearl is measured that way, and the pearls contain no gold.

Golden South Sea grading

What AAA means on this strand

Our grades consider luster, shape, surface and matching together, and luster is what they turn on. For surface we describe what the piece actually looks like rather than quoting a clean percentage. At these sizes a piece will almost always carry some marking, and a number cannot tell you whether that marking matters.

• ALow to medium luster, noticeable variation from the stated shape, and marking readily visible across the piece.
• AA+Medium to high luster with some variation in shape. More marking, sometimes accepted for the beauty of the piece as a whole.
• AA+/AAAVery high luster, closely conforming to its stated shape. Most pearls very clean, with a few carrying more. The combined grade describes variation in surface, not mixed luster or an inconsistently matched strand.
• AAAThis piece. Very high luster, closely conforming to its stated shape, clean overall with any marking minor enough not to draw the eye.

Select Gem A selection that sits outside this scale rather than above it. Not a tier we sort into, but a collection built over time: exceptional natural color, shape and surface at once, with any marking slight or sitting where a setting will cover it. Collected one pearl at a time, then assembled pearl by pearl.