In Reply to: Pearls posted by petrob on Thursday, 8. February 2007 at 16:50 Bali Time:
All freshwater pearls available for sale in Bali and Lombok come from China. There is a supplier in Surabaya who supplies most of the re-sellers in Bali and Lombok, if you're buying large quantities it's worth a day trip to buy. There is also a supplier in Lombok who imports directly from China (his shop is in Chakra).
If you are buying large quantities (more than 2-3kg) the prices will be between 500Rp to 1500Rp per gram - depending on the quality and size. That puts a 16" string of say small white pearls at around Rp8500. Top quality almost round white would be around Rp35,000.
(Don't gasp everyone at what you pay the beach-sellers, they need a big markup as they don't sell enough to make a living otherwise, and i'm quoting prices ex the middleman that the beach sellers buy from).
If you are looking for 'finished' product - ie strung and with clasps you need to consider what sort of clasps you want, also the quality of the string (can vary), and quality of stringing work.
You would probably do better to source out your clasps (from Celuk) and pearls, then get them strung by one of the 'pearl sellers' in Bali (who are pretty quick at stringing and can usually do good knotting work if you want to knot between the pearls).
Cheers