TAIWANESE CORAL

OUR CORAL:

 is NOT fake, look alike or imitation coral... its the REAL thing!

It is Taiwanese Coral from the late 1970's - early 1980s!

Like so many of our products, it has been stored away for something like nearly HALF a CENTURY!

Taiwan harvested an enormous amounts of coral in those days.

That has now been restricted with set quotas in order to protect the coral reefs and make coral harvesting a sustainable industry.

In 2014 Taiwan restricted the harvesting of Coral to 6,000 kg per year.

By the time this quantity is processed into beads, cabochons and carvings, the weight and number of Coral items getting to the market is drastically reduced.

 

When coral isn't CORAL!

The restrictions has caused a huge shortfall in the market and this shortfall has since been replaced with a flood of so-called "natural", "untreated" Coral imitations like bamboo, resins, re-constituted Coral etc...

Re-constituted coral is low grade, faulty and rubbish Coral crushed into powder, colouring added, then mixed with a resin and after which it can then be made into beads, cabochons and other items.

The colour of these imitations are usually a blood red to imitate Oxblood Coral which is the most sought after colour and highly priced.

Anything claimed to be Natural Coral and which has a perfectly uniform colour, all over, should be viewed with care, especially if it appears to be a bargain.

There is a huge amount of "coral" on the internet and it really is a case of: "Buyer beware!"

 

CORAL VALUE:

Very large pieces of Coral are very expensive and for good reason; to cut or carve something very large require a very large coral stem and that is very rare and hard to find.

The price for a cabochon cut Coral rise rapidly when the thickness of a Coral branch increase and width of the cabochon increase accordingly.

A cabochon cut stone that is about 13 mm wide may be something like 10 times more expensive than one that is 9 mm wide, like an 18 x 13 mm as against a 11 x 9 mm.

 

We stock:

Necklaces, Bracelets, Carvings for pendants, Carvings for earrings, Branches. 

We generally have Coral in the Pink range: 

Oxblood - Red - Very Dark Pink - Dark Pink - Pink - Light Pink - Very Light Pink - White

 

PLEASE NOTE:

If interested in large quantities, please contact us.