In preparation for the Today’s Top Value we have coming up on Monday evening, here is a quick inside look at what it took for us to produce this! This is definitely an interesting way to look at this, but to also see some of the necessary steps we had to take to provide a necklace that we are all very proud of! Enjoy!
– 3 years is the minimum amount of time each mollusk was in the water to culture a pearl.
– 8 trips taken to French Polynesia over the last 12 months to collect the pearls for this Today’s Top Value.
– 18 months to collect the needed quantity of pearls.
– Over 100,000 pearls were originally collected and selected down to the final amount of 25,000.
– 25 percent of all pearls from the original 100,000 were accepted and used.
– 8 years is the maximum amount of combined time the largest pearls need to culture.
– 0 percent of the pearls have been treated or enhanced.
– 100 percent of these pearls were x- ray inspected by French Polynesian government officials to guarantee adequate amounts of pearl nacre.
– 2 years is the time needed for an oyster to grow from a baby seedling to a juvenile, when it can be cultured
– 1 year is the minimum amount of time typically needed to culture a Tahitian pearl.
– .8 millimeters of pearl nacre is needed around at least 60% of a pearls surface to legally export them from the islands of French Polynesia
– .1 millimeters of nacre is what is typically found in the average Akoya pearl.
– 10,160 air miles is the distance to travel from our office to Tahiti and back
– 176 hours or 81,280 miles were flown just last year to accrue the total amount of pearls needed to complete this item.
– 9 different islands contributed pearls for this item.
– 1 pearl is cultured each time the mollusk is seeded for pearl production.
– The Pinctada Margaritifera iscultured 3 times before it can no longer culture pearls, however each time it is reused, the likelihood of pearl production decreases- meaning 11mm and larger sized pearls are the most rare of all Tahitian pearls.
– 70 percent decreases in mollusks for pearl culturing over the last 3 years have contributed to a shortage of Tahitian pearls.
– 6 millimeters is the smallest nucleus used in the production of an 8-10mm Tahitian pearl giving it about 4mm of pearl nacre.
– 12 days of inspection were required to x-ray and visually check the pearls with 5 inspectors working an 8 hour day.
– Over 192,180 total grams of pearls were used for all of the necklaces with the 11-13mm option weighing about 78 grams per necklace and the 8-10mm option weighing about 45 grams.
– 500 lbs of pearls were physically carried back from French Polynesia over the last 18 months!
– 50 drilling machines were burned out with countless drill bits and remade engines were used in our production. In- fact, we have an engineer on staff who kept rotating the engines and machines out so we could keep drilling clean holes.
– Over 25,000 knots were tied between pearls.
– 432.25 grams of gold were used in the clasps.
Kwan Collections 
What an incredible amount of work that goes into making your beautiful pieces! All we have to do is call ShopNBC and they are delivered to our door, and on our body they go…so simple for us. Thank you for showing what a labor of love it is for you and your family to keep this fabulous “craft” going. I love all the photos, videos and information you share, please keep the tradition going!
Everything stated in your post is The reason we have Soo much passion for Gods works of Art,each Pearl created in the planets most beautiful water,salt or fresh, the Stunning result touches our HEARTS deeply! Thank you Kwan family for the supreme effort in bringing this Treasure to all of us!!!
ALL THIS HAS TAUGHT US OF THE BEAUTY OF “PEARLS” IN OUR LIFE. YOU ARE A GREAT TEACHER OF “PEARLS.” THANKS TO YOU, NICK, AND THE KWAN FAMILY