Per Gram — The Wholesale Pearl Pricing Convention by Weight
Per Gram — The Wholesale Pearl Pricing Convention by Weight
A pricing method used principally for freshwater pearls and South Sea keshi, where total weight rather than per-pearl character drives value
Per gram is one of the three principal pearl-pricing conventions in the international wholesale trade, alongside per-pearl pricing for premium and unique stones and per-momme pricing in the Japanese Akoya tradition. Per-gram pricing applies most often to freshwater cultured pearls, to keshi (non-bead-nucleated pearl) lots, and to commercial-grade strands where the buyer is purchasing a quantity of broadly similar material rather than evaluating each pearl individually.
How it works
A dealer offering a freshwater pearl strand at $4 per gram, with a strand weight of 18 grams, is asking $72 for the strand. A larger lot of mixed bead and rice-shape freshwater pearls quoted at $1.50 per gram with a parcel weight of 800 grams totals $1,200. The convention scales cleanly with quantity and is well suited to material that is similar in size and quality across the lot, which is the usual situation for commercial-grade freshwater pearls processed by Chinese cooperatives and traded out of Zhuji and Zhejiang province.
Per-gram pricing is also used for some categories of South Sea keshi — the non-nucleated pearls produced as a by-product of the bead-nucleated South Sea industry — where the variability in shape and size makes per-pearl pricing unworkable. The buyer in such cases is purchasing the keshi as a parcel for jewellery design or for further sorting and grading.
Where it sits in the pricing landscape
The choice of pricing convention reflects how the material moves through the market. Bulk commercial freshwater pearls are sold per gram at the production source, then sometimes per strand once they have been threaded for retail. Higher-grade freshwater pearls — the round and near-round metallic-lustre material from the major Chinese producers — moves toward per-strand and per-pearl pricing as the price per unit increases. Akoya is per momme by Japanese tradition. South Sea round pearls and Tahitian rounds are typically per pearl. The transitions between conventions are gradual and reflect the trade's shared sense of when individual pearl character begins to dominate the value of the lot.
In the trade
The China Pearl & Jewellery City in Zhuji and the Hong Kong Jewellery & Gem Fair are the principal venues where per-gram freshwater pearl trading takes place at international scale. Buyers should weigh strands or parcels themselves rather than relying on the seller's stated weight, and should be alert to quality drift within a parcel — a per-gram price that looks attractive can mask a lot in which the better pearls are concentrated at the visible edges and the centre is filled with lower-grade material. Sorting after purchase is a normal expectation.
For retail jewellers buying in modest quantities, per-strand pricing is more common than per-gram, since the dealer has already sorted and assembled the strand. The per-gram conversation is principally between producers and wholesale buyers, and between wholesale dealers and the larger jewellery designers who buy in bulk to disassemble and re-sort for individual designs.