A Pearl Paradise collection
A high jeweler keeps one or two. We have a vault.
High jewelry built around pearls worth building around. Rare baroques, unusual colors, sizes that do not come along often, in settings made to present the pearl rather than compete with it. There is one of each.
- One of eachIn the collection
- The pearl firstEvery piece
- See it liveBefore you buy
One piece, up close
White to peacock, pearl by pearl.
Seventy seven round pearls over thirty five inches, graduating from white South Sea at the back through to peacock Tahitian at the front. Every one of them had to be found rather than made, and each had to sit correctly against the two beside it.
Matching a strand like this is the hardest thing in pearls. A house works at it for years, holding pearls back as they come in, waiting for the ones that close the gaps in the gradient. Most never finish. This is what it looks like when someone does.
See this pieceWhat belongs here
The pearl has to be worth building around.
These are collector's pieces. The kind a jewelry house spends years assembling the material for, then keeps back for the clients who understand what they are looking at.
The pearl came first
Every piece here started with a pearl, and the mounting was made to it. That is the opposite of how most jewelry is produced, where a design is drawn first and a pearl is sourced to fill it. It is also why the settings are built to show the pearl rather than crowd it.
Rare on its own terms
Not 7 to 8 mm whites. Baroques with real character, colors a farm waited years to produce, sizes and degrees of roundness that turn up rarely at any price. The pearl has to be remarkable before the piece can be.
One of each
There is a single example of everything in this collection, and these are not pieces you will find on other websites. Some of them will end up in serious collections, and a few will eventually turn up at auction.
Where they are
A vault inside a bank. A safe inside the vault.
Our building in Los Angeles used to be a bank branch, and when we took it over we inherited the vault. It is the real thing, a commercial bank vault, and most of our inventory lives in it.
These pieces do not. They sit in a separate standing safe we installed inside the vault. A high jeweler might hold one or two things of this caliber at a time. The reason we can fill a safe with them is that we buy collections whole, from houses that spent decades building them, rather than a piece at a time.
The Assael Collection came into this safe in its entirety. See the Assael pieces.
See it first
See what a photograph cannot.
Forty five minutes with a pearl specialist. Choose any piece and we will bring it to the close up camera, so you can watch the luster move, ask us to turn it toward the light, and see the surface as it actually is.
Book a private viewingNo cost and no obligation. A viewing does not hold the piece.
Questions
About these pieces
What makes a piece good enough for The Vault?
The pearl, first. These are built around a pearl that was worth building around: a rare baroque, an unusual color, a size or a roundness that does not come along often. The setting exists to present that pearl rather than compete with it, which is the opposite of how most jewelry is made, where a design is drawn and a pearl is found to fill it.
Then the piece as a whole. This is high jewelry, made by houses that spend years assembling material of this caliber. There is one of each here, and these are not pieces you will find on other websites.
Is the piece in the photograph the exact piece I will receive?
Yes. Every photograph and every video on this page is of the actual piece, shot by us in our Los Angeles office. Nothing here is a stock image or a representative sample.
That matters more with pearls than with almost anything else. Two pearls of the same type, size and grade can differ visibly in luster, overtone and surface, so a representative photograph would not tell you what you were buying. What you see is what ships.
Why do you have so many of these?
A high jeweler might hold one or two pieces of this caliber at a time, kept back for the clients who understand them. We acquire complete collections from established houses rather than buying piece by piece, which is how a vault ends up full of them.
Why are they priced the way they are?
We buy collections outright and we do not carry a retail showroom, so the pieces are priced against what we paid rather than against what a jewelry house would need to charge for them. Many were also made when gold and large pearls cost considerably less than they do now, and in some cases the pearls are no longer available in that size at all.
Can a ring be resized?
Sometimes, and not always by much. Many of these mountings carry diamonds around the shank, which limits how far a jeweler can move them. Ask us about the specific piece before you buy and we will tell you honestly what is possible.
Can I see something in person?
Yes, by appointment at our Los Angeles office. If you would rather not travel, a video call from the vault gets you closer to the pearl than most people ever get across a counter. A viewing does not hold the piece.
What if I want something I do not see here?
Tell us. Not everything in the safe has been photographed yet, and pieces are still being added. If you are looking for a particular pearl type, size, color or shape, we will go and look.
