Pearl shopping in China

I will be in Beijing and Shanghai in March and would like to purchase pearls for gifts. I would appreciate any suggestions for places to shop. Although this trip is a land tour, I know that Cruise Critic members are wonderful resources! Thank you!

Do you know pearls? Better be very knowledgable before you venture to buy some. You need to be able to judge quality and tell real from fake.

I agree. Do your homework.

Keith

Do not plan to buy pearls or jade in the A.P. Market (fake market) in Shanghai.

I will be in Beijing and Shanghai in March and would like to purchase pearls for gifts. I would appreciate any suggestions for places to shop. Although this trip is a land tour, I know that Cruise Critic members are wonderful resources! Thank you!

You can get very high quality fakes at the Pearl Market in Beijing. These are reasonably priced if you bargain. There isn't much point in buying real pearls in China.

Don't agree to let them gift-wrap it or take your purchase out of your sight. A friend who is actually Chinese-American agreed to this. When she got home, the item in the box was of lesser quality than what she purchased. I don't know if it was pearls though.

Thank you all.

As far as I know, Chinese pearls are freshwater pearls. Their color spectrum is white/grey. If they are dark like south sea pearls from Tahiti or pink like Australian pearls, they have been dyed. If they are flawless and cheap, they can't be genuine. Our guide took us to a government store in Beijing, but the only think I liked there was way out of my price range.

I thought that silk was a better gift, beautiful silk scarves, make sure they are 100% silk, you can feel it.

There isn't much point in buying real pearls in China.

I'm going to take a slightly different point of view from most of the posters. I've bought serious pearls in China twice: during trips in 2000 and 2011. Both times I bought at stores on the top most floor of the Pearl Market in Beijing. Both times, I bought the pearls home as "unset" gems to save money on duty. In pearls, that specifically means the pearls are on a knotted string with no clasp.

As part of having the pearls converted into a useful necklace, I had my local jewelry store appraise the pearls. The appraisal was done by the store's Gemological Institute of America certified employee. Although the appraisal was for significantly higher than I paid, let's put that aside since insurance appraisals are notoriously inflated. I can only say that the trained appraiser rated the pearls as very high grade. They were even willing to buy the pearls from me for their inventory at a modest profit for me. (The last two facts reassured me more than the high insurance appraisal.)

I did look at pearls before I made each trip and I made my purchases during independent land trips to Beijing. I mention that last detail since we were able to control our time spent pearl shopping. I was not trying to keep up with a group schedule. Being rushed is likely to yield a decision you may come to regret.

Basically...

... know before you go.

... set a budget based on your research at home and stick to that budget.

... spend time making your decision in the store.

... don't expect your purchase to be the best shopping coup in the history of pearl shopping!

Thank you all for the information. We have a private guide so we will not be at the mercy of a group tour. I already told the tour agency that I do not want any gift shop stops unless we request them!

We are staying near the Pearl Market in Beijing so I will look at pearls there. Pet Nit Noy, I am interested your suggestion in buying the pearls as unset. Was it expensive to have a clasp attached in the U.S.? Thank you.

Thank you all for the information. We have a private guide so we will not be at the mercy of a group tour. I already told the tour agency that I do not want any gift shop stops unless we request them!

 

We are staying near the Pearl Market in Beijing so I will look at pearls there. Pet Nit Noy, I am interested your suggestion in buying the pearls as unset. Was it expensive to have a clasp attached in the U.S.? Thank you.

Let's begin with the Customs rule that causes me to raise the point in the first place:

"Personal imports of these items are usually cleared informally and do not require a Customs bond. However, if you purchased them while you were abroad, ensure you declare them when clearing Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on the CBP Form 6059B. Imports of diamonds, pearls, rubies, sapphires and emeralds from countries with normal trade relation status are duty-free as long as they are not permanently strung, set or mounted.... When these items are set or mounted with some sort of metal, they are classified as jewelry and subject to duty. These rates can also be found in chapter 71.

US Customs and Border Control Protection web site:

https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/344/kw/loose%20stones/session/L3RpbWUvMTQ1NzQ2MjkzNS9zaWQvWmNQQ3ZaS20%3D/suggested/1

I haven't copied the tables of duty rates for set jewelry, but they're available from links on the above page.

I don't know if the money I save on customs offsets the price of buying a clasp locally and having it strung locally. Certainly bringing home a ready-to-wear necklace from China means you can wear your purchase during the rest of the cruise -- and you never have to think about your necklace beyond enjoying it -- but there are other factors that cause me to prefer doing things the way I've described.

I like to have Chinese purchases restrung at a local jeweler. I don't know anything about the quality of the "string" the Chinese use. If I've educated myself, I can tell the difference in the quality of the pearls, but I know nothing about the string. That might be an area where a store could cut corners because the string is largely unseen. Unseen but important!

Some re-stringers make smaller knots and others make larger, more attention getting knots. From my point of view, I want the smallest knot that gets the job done. I don't want the knots to be so small they let all the pearls slide off if the strand breaks. However, I want the focus to be on the pearls. I know the work done by the McLean store I recommend at the end of my post, but if you're considering bringing the project to a closer Oakton store, make sure you ask about more than just price.

Finally, I want to reassure you that even without a clasp, you won't be bringing in a bunch of loose pearls bouncing around and rubbing against one another in a pouch. Most of the pearls you'll look at in China consist of groups of pearls that the sorters have decided will go together to make an attractive necklace. These groups are strung without knots between each pearl but with a big knot at the beginning and end of the strand. This allows you to safely transport the pearls without them getting lost or damaged.

Mangan's Jewelers (6801 Whittier Ave, McLean) is where I have done business for decades. I can think of four projects they've done for me that required restringing and the addition of a clasp.

Thank you for the very interesting and informative reply!