Lot 02
The Rangiroa Rope
Tahitian · Motu Ahé lagoon, Tuamotu Archipelago, French Polynesia · lifted 2024 · graded New York
One hundred and eight pearls, long enough to wear once at full length, doubled as a princess, or knotted at the sternum. Fourteen of them are circled — ringed with fine grooves that run round the pearl like contour lines. We left them in on purpose.
Circling is treated as a fault in most grading schemes, and on a uniform strand it would be. On a rope this long it does the opposite: it breaks up the repetition and catches light at a different angle from the round pearls beside it. The strand is more interesting for having them.
Colour runs from a smoky steel through green-dominant peacock to a deep aubergine at the centre. None of it is treated. A Tahitian pearl's darkness is the oyster's own shell lip, laid down layer by layer.
$9,750 including insured delivery and the signed report
Which length is right? Drawn to scale
Just below the collarbone. The default, and the safest gift.
- 30-day returns, shipping paid both ways
- Signed grading report with every piece
- Free restringing for life
Condition report Lot 02 · IO-TA-0219
- size
- 9.0 – 11.2mm
- length
- 36 inches (opera / rope)
- count
- 108 pearls
- lustre
- Very good to excellent
- surface
- Lightly spotted — 88% clean
- nacre
- 1.4 – 2.2mm
- shape
- Round to near-round; 14 circled
- colour
- Dark grey body; peacock and aubergine overtones
- matching
- Very good
- strung
- Double-knotted on charcoal silk
- clasp
- 18k white gold barrel clasp, concealed
Provenance
Motu Ahé lagoon, Tuamotu Archipelago, French Polynesia. Lifted 2024. Graded and strung at the bench in Tribeca, New York.
Assessed by
Elin FerreiraGraduate Gemologist, GIA
Every figure above was measured on this piece. The standard
Lustre — Very good to excellent
Drag to see the grades either side of it.
Motu Ahé lagoon
Tuamotu Archipelago, French Polynesia — Pinctada margaritifera — black-lipped oyster. A Tahitian pearl is dark all the way through — the colour is the oyster's own shell lip, not a treatment. What varies is the overtone floating on top of that dark body: the greens and violets people call peacock, or the smoky purple called aubergine.
Three other lots.
