Conch beads are very rare. It is said that every 1000 to 2,000 Pterospondias, only one Koonjuk can be found, and only 10% can achieve gem quality. Therefore, the hole is one of the most precious natural pearls.
Because of its remote and mysterious origin, it was not until the Victorian era that Koonjuk's shells were used for jewelry. Jewelry with holes as elements began to appear during the Art Nouveau movement.
Konjuk's charming pink and unique flame pattern make it different from traditional pearls, which can add a lot of romance, vitality and modernity to jewelry.
Harry Winston, Tiffany & Company, Cartier, and other well-known jewelry brands have all launched Kong's high-grade jewelry. Tamaki, the king of pearls, designed a series of pearl jewelry for Kong, making Kong famous in Japan.
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Why is the yield of natural wild Kunzhuke scarce?
First of all, because it is a natural pearl, from the growth of the queen's phoenix snail to the formation of pearls, it is carried out in the natural environment. It can be said that every pearl is a "beautiful accident".
Secondly, the Queen Conch only lives in the Caribbean, and its snail meat is the local delicacy. Fishermen only find Konjuk when they eat snail meat.
In recent years, due to overfishing, the number of queen snails has decreased year by year and has been listed as an endangered wild animal. There are strict restrictions on its fishing activities, so it is even less to get Koonjuk.
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Is there any artificially cultured Konjuk?
For hundreds of years, the hole, as a gift from the sea, has only existed in wild anchovies. In recent years, there have been some reports of artificially cultured Kongzhuke, whose appearance and properties are completely consistent with those of natural Kongzhuke, and can only be distinguished by X-ray micrography.
Although there is no artificially bred Kunzhuke in the market, the guild laboratory will carefully identify each Kunzhuke to ensure the fairness and accuracy of the results.
03
How to evaluate the quality of Confucius?
The quality of Konjuk mainly depends on the size, shape, color, flame lines and the number of calcium spots on the pearl surface. Through a lot of investigation and analysis, the laboratory put forward the "Koonjuk Scoring Standard of Guild Laboratory".
size
Most holes are very small, only the size of a grain of rice. 1 to 3 carats of Konjuk is often used in jewelry, but it is very rare to see anything larger than 5 carats.
shape
Common ones are nearly oval, drop-shaped, nearly round and irregular. The shape of natural pearls is usually irregular, so there is no need to be too harsh on this point. After all, every natural pearl is precious and unique.
colour
Generally, it is light pink to dark pink, and the common ones are orange pink, brown pink, yellow and red. Pink and orange pink are the most popular colors.
The color of Konjuk is related to the size and maturity of Pteris. It takes 3-4 years for the queen snail to mature, and it is about 18 cm long. And its average life span is 20-30 years, and the longest can reach more than 30 centimeters.
Generally, the longer the conch, the more mature the conch, and the redder the interior color, it is possible to form a jewel-grade Kong Zhuke.
According to the saturation, the color of Konjuk is divided into five grades:
-Strong
-Vivid
-Intense
-Light
-Faint
Flame pattern
The flame pattern of the hole is caused by the cross-arranged aragonite structure inside. When Konjuk rotates in the sun, the flame-like texture is accompanied by silky luster, such as flowing luster, showing unique subtlety and softness.
Konjuk's best flame lines can be clearly seen on the whole pearl surface, but such pearls are very rare.
According to whether the flame pattern on Kong Zhuke's surface is visible to the naked eye and the degree of covering the pearl surface, the flame pattern is divided into five grades:
-Great.
-Very good.
-Good.
fair
-No flame
Surface calcium point
White spots sometimes appear on the surface of natural Kong Zhuke, often appearing at both ends of pearls, which are called "calcium spots" in the industry.
When a small amount of calcium spots appear at both ends of the pearl, it has little effect on the appearance, but when calcium spots appear on the surface of the pearl in a large area, it will affect the beauty of Kong Zhuke.
According to the number of calcium spots on the surface of Konjuk, it is divided into five grades:
-Clean
-It's easy to spot
-Slightly spotted
-Moderate spots
-Lots of spots
For more popular science contents about conch beads, please refer to the following contents.
Koonjuk, the Treasure of Caribbean Sea
Conceptually, conch bead is a special kind of pearl, while hole is a special kind of conch bead.
Conch pearl is essentially a concept put forward by fashion industry or jewelry industry. There is no strict academic definition, but it is only to distinguish pearls produced by cultured shellfish or freshwater shellfish that are common in the market. That is to say, pearls except those produced by crested mussels, cumingia, black butterflies, white butterflies, penguin pearls and Pinctada martensii are all conch pearls.
Some conch pearls are expensive, mainly because there is no artificial culture, and the output is very low, and the output is also very low. There are even fewer conch pearls that can really be used as jewelry, so the price is expensive. In the past, pearls were expensive when they could not be farmed artificially. Due to the imprecise definition, many pearls in the conch pearl range are not produced by conch in the real sense, but a considerable part are produced by bivalve shellfish. Moreover, some of these "conchs" can also be cultured artificially, but there are no artificial pearls. For example, abalone, which we often eat, can also produce pearls. However, abalone is farmed as food, and there are no farmed pearls. However, due to the large output of abalone, abalone beads are not uncommon. Moreover, the color of abalone beads is like black opal, which will change color under different illumination. It is also a very popular "conch bead" in Europe, and the key is not expensive. So the so-called conch beads are expensive and cheap. It is argued that conch beads must be pure natural, artificially collected, scarce, so expensive, etc., all in order to sell at a good price.
Let's talk about Kong. Generally speaking, Kong Zhuke refers to the pearls produced by the queen phoenix snail. He is just one of many conch pearls. Colors range from light pink to true red, featuring flame patterns. Holes are really beautiful and rare, and the price is relatively high. Interestingly, it is feasible to artificially breed the phoenix king snail. As the market of Kunzhuk continues to heat up, artificially bred Kunzhuk will also go to the market.
Conch pearl: produced in a large pink conch that lives in the Caribbean, it is very famous. Beads are usually pink, occasionally white or brown. They have unique flame-like surface traces, high-quality shapes are symmetrical on both sides, usually oval, and the price ranges from 80 million to 80 thousand Hong Kong dollars. Arabs and Europeans have a soft spot for this kind of pearl.
trait
Conch pearl is unique in that it contains a unique and bright flame under its smooth surface, which is very noble.
Another feature of this pearl is that it is not grown in mussels, but slowly formed in conchs. Their existence is entirely due to nature, and any attempt to cultivate conch pearls artificially will end in failure.
Only about 50,000 conchs can get usable pearls after removing the meat. So you can only find 2000-3000 conch pearls at most every year.
The most typical feature of conch pearls is the color frequency bandwidth. The colors in the bandwidth range from light rose to bright pink, and sometimes even from grayish green to ochre brown. But now white conch pearls have also been found.
So far, no scientist in the world has made an authoritative qualitative analysis of Kong and Haizhu. As far as pearls are concerned, medicinal crushed additional drugs can beautify and protect skin, and eating them is not recorded by drugs alone! But it does have a skin care effect and has no other effects on the body. When people wear it with jewelry, it becomes more valuable.