Can Mr Richard Hughes please clarify ....

Dear Mr Hughes

You are highly respected in the gemstone industry and I don't believe you would ever knowingly allow misrepresentation. Therefore I am appealing for you to clarify the following:-

- Are the Tahitian Pearls that GemsTV sell totally natural i.e. free of any type of enhancement?

The GemsTV gemstone enhancement guide on the website clearly states:-

Pearl, Natural and Cultured
All varieties, including mother-of-pearl
FD/L–S - Dyed to improve colour. May include use of coloured nuclei and/or heat
B/L - Bleached to improve colour and appearance
C/M - Coated to improve appearance
I/S - Irradiated to improve colour

You will appreciate that this is at odds to the information given by presenters who go to great lengths to tell us that the Tahitian Pearls are untreated. I will be delighted to hear that the Tahitian Pearls are natural. Although I have bought mine assuming some form of treatment. If the TPs sold by GemsTV are natural then perhaps the enhancement page could be rectified? If perhaps some, but not all, Tahitian Pearls are natural, this might be worth stating?

If they are treated in any way then perhaps you could clarify this with the presenters who state on air vociferously that the TPs are natural and untreated.

Your clarification would be greatly appreciated.

Yours, with respect.

UPDATE:

The lovely Trish phoned me to say that the query has been passed to Thailand because they want absolute clarity before answering the above.

Looks like by the end of the week we'll have a definitive answer.

:up2: Gems CS!

Oh excellent and well done Meesh. I think it's great when the channels/their associates and staff, take the trouble to at least try and help. So good for customer/channel relations. xxxxxx

PS - I wonder if we have another Katherine but at Gems. Trisha was kind enough to call me a couple of days ago very soon after I emailed with a problem, and it was resolved immediately.

Arge - Trish has been at Gems for many years and is actually one of their managers. Trish, Lynne and Brian are 3 of the remaining "old crew" - apologies to anybody I've missed out - and they always go the extra mile. :up2:

I have some fantastic news for all TP owners! I received this today:


The email has come from Richard Hughes:

This afternoon I noticed a question directed my way on shoppingtelly.com regarding the enhancement of Tahitian pearls.

True Tahitian pearls come from the black-lipped Pinctada margaritifera oyster. The nacre is naturally black, so no treatment is necessary.

Where the confusion comes in is that our enhancement page lists all gem enhancements, including some not used on our gems. There is a note to that effect as follows:

Final notes
The following tables show the enhancements used for both major and minor gems, along with care instructions. This has been compiled based on our own experience, coupled with the expertise of our suppliers, the world's major gemmological laboratories, trade associations, regulatory bodies, professional journals, etc. These tables include all known enhancements, even those not applied to the gems sold by GemsTV.

Note that enhancements are constantly being developed and altered. We do our best to provide the latest information, but if there are questions, the best solution is to have the individual gem tested by a major gemmological laboratory.”

I hope that this has assisted you in your enquiry.

So a big thank you to Richard Hughes for responding.

My only niggle (sorry!) is that I wonder what's the point of an enhancement page if it's a "catch all"? I guess the only way to be sure is to have a gem tested as he suggests but this costs money and requires for the gem to be unmounted. Surely it would be a sales pitch to market these as untreated TPs? When you look at the price on the High Street/internet, we are clearly getting brilliant deals with GemsTV so I wonder why they don't shout it from the rooftops - I would!

Anyway, thank you Richard Hughes and GemsTV for once again being proactive in answering queries :up2:

.now the question is.are genss tahtin pearls 'true' taihitain pearls...? Hope that doesnt sound too stupipo...