The Pearl Trader

By Louis Kornitzer
Published by Sheridan House, New York
1937

Sheridan House writes:

Lucky is the man whose life has been the pursuit of beauty and adventure. Louis Kornitzer, one of the great rare peal dealers of the world, is that man.

His autobiography, The Pearl Dealer, is one of the great autobiographies of our time—if not of all time—for it shows that a businessman may be an artist, an adventurer, a philosopher, and that one need not be an Axel Munthe, a Victor Heiser, or a Vincent Sheean to have lived a full, exciting, and intelligent life.

With the “world as his oyster” our author set out from London for the wide open, two gun pearl fishing town of Broome, Australia…from there to Sulu and Zamboanga (where the monkeys have no tails), when Black Jack Pershing was earning his gold stars chasing Moros into the hills----then to Hong Kong, where we get an inside view of the business ways for which the heathen Chinee is peculiar…from an odyssey through the Far East he sails back to London and Paris, where the great pearl traders nonchalantly toss about king’s ransoms in little tissue paper envelopes and where the author regales us with sophisticated tales of the vanity of men and the beauty of women.

A third division of this book is a short encyclopedia of pearl lore, which contains for the first time the intimate secrets of a pearl connoisseurs in their judgment of these subtle and moon-like gems.

Among the hundreds of good stories, anecdotes, and observations that tumble out of Kornitzer’s merry pages are those of the monkey who knew how many peanuts he could buy for a centavo…the Chinese clerk whose self-invented system of phonetics could record any sound from the spoken word to the flutter of a leaf…the dispute between the Canton vendor or roast cockroaches and the customer who purchased one of these dainties for a cash (about 1/20 of a cent) and then complained of its quality…the pearl dealer who was ruined by his honesty…Pigott, whose sense of humor saved his head…and the strange adventures of those wizards of skill, the pearl doctors.

Here you have an amusing record of a full life: wit, philosophy, anecdote, business experience, beauty, adventure, history, science and art.

The Pearl Trader is a human document of engrossing interest. There is not a single dull paragraph in its 384 pages.

About Louis Kornitzer
Author of The Pearl Trader

As a boy he sorted dirty seed pearls brought from the ghettos of Poland to his father’s shop…as a young man he learned the wiles of trading in the great gem marts of the world….as a man he traded with the wild Sea Dyaks of the Celebes, Mandarins with the culture of thousand of years a their finger tips, and Connemera Curraghmen who knew their values as well as the brokers of Maiden Lane.

He has left little or nothing out of his crowded life story, The Pearl Trader…you must read this book to savor fully one of the great personalities of our time.


The Pearl Merchants of Paris
Louis Kornitzer writes:

For a long time, a very long time, Paris has been the center of the pearl trade. The reason for this escapes me, unless it is that the many wealthy foreigners who visit it spend their money there more readily than they do anywhere else.

That, of course, would only be partial explanation, as would also the fact that the French gold and silversmiths are more than ordinarily skilled workers in precious metals. But as most of the important pearl fishing stations are situated in British possessions or adjoining them, and as nine-tenths of the pearls fished all over the world are consigned to London bankers and import houses, it is rather strange that Paris and not London should have become the great distributing center for this gem.

Within the last fifty years that part of the Rue Lafayette which runs from the Gare du Nord to within a few paces of the Grand Opera House has attracted numerous pearl merchants and brokers, whose offices are located in that thoroughfare. The Rue Lafayatte is to Pars what Hatton Garden is to London and Maiden Lane to New York—the headquarters of the trade in precious stones and pearls.

In any of these three thoroughfares there are to be seen throughout the whole year, irrespective of the season, and in practically all weathers short of tropical downpour or a hurricane, groups of men, for the most part sallow-complexioned, beak-nosed, and falcon-eyed, standing on the pavement or in the gutter, so that is sometimes difficult to pass. It is a hundred to one that these are more than fresh air fiends—that they are dealers or brokers in precious stones. Those who have a more refined appearance are undoubtedly the handlers of pearls. It would indeed be strange if the constant communion with the queen of gem had no refining influence.

If you are interested to discover which of them are dealers and which are brokers, you have only to peer into their faces. The haggard and pale, the worried-looking ones, those are the dealers. The sleekly-complacent and jesting ones are the brokers. Must I explain? The dealer has to take and give credit. Any error of judgment when appraising goods is upon his own head and his is the entire risk. But the broker is merely the go-between. Heads or tails, he wins. He obtains a brokerage from both buyer and seller, 1 per cent from either side, and the merchants have to pay him whether they register a gain or a loss.

You may wonder why, since the dealers know of each other’s existence, they do not trade directly and thus save the brokerage. They would certainly do so if they could, because brokerage is stiff tax, and no merchant is keen on curtailing his own profit or increasing his charges. But they cannot dispense with the broker. They have to tolerate him as the shark tolerates the pilot fish ( I trust the comparison will not be carried to extreme lengths).

The broker touts for business. He knows, or ought to know, the requirements of nearly everybody with whom he comes in contact. He is a kind of marriage broker. He is expected to praise the bride-to-be (vendor’s goods) and to extol the merits of the future bridegroom (the solvency of the buyer). He is a pimp of sorts, too, if you like. Yet it is to be acknowledged that he often acts the imperial judge and holds the scales of fairly even, and that more often than not he is worthy of his hire.

No, they are not all Jews, these Paris pearl- merchants and brokers. Many are Armenians, Syrians, Arabs, Parsees, Hindus, with a sprinkling of Neapolitans and Catalans and an odd Frenchman or two.

The appearance of many of them is not prepossessing. I grant you, and perhaps we would not be inclined to trust some of them out of our sight with a one cent stamp. Yet in some ways these men’s word is their bond. Their nod is as good as stamped agreement. Their verbal offer is binding. Parcels of pearls or other gems are handed from trader to trader and by them to brokers back and forth in an intricate chain, without acknowledgment in writing, without a receipt of any kind, and often without being checked over for contents. It is taken for granted by all concerned that the details of numbers and weights are correct and precisely as recorded on the wrappers containing the valuable merchandise.

Coming and going, there is implicit trust and almost child-like faith on this particular side of the business. Of chicanery there is plenty, as you will hear, but not in the important matter of ‘handing-round’ for sale, upon which the whole trade depends. Woe to the member of the closed circle, therefore, who betrays the confidence, reposed in him. His name is besmirched for evermore, and the gutter is his lot. The crook in the jewel trade is not honest because he loves virtue, but because he must be so.

The trade has peculiar customs, and by some of them the skinflint or the rogue has to abide, even when it hurts his pockets. There are, for example, times when a bargain, like a good steed, can be made to carry two.

Look at this particular group of four men standing on the curb of the Rue Lafayette. Each is acting according to his lights and his nature, and all are quite unselfconscious, for they do not know that thirty years later we shall be looking at them.

Of the four, the two well-groomed and prosperous-looking men are dealers; Senor Lopez, a Portuguese Jew, and Herr Ohnstadt, a naturalized Frenchman. Third is small shopkeeper from the Faubourg St.Germain. He is French from the tip of goatee to his prejudice against everything non-Gallic.

The fourth man does not know his own nationality. Neither Russians nor Poles will acknowledge him, but each try to wish him on to the other party. Meanwhile the French Government, which is patient with the alien sojourning in the midst, cannot send him over the frontier, because during forty years residence he has behaved himself properly. But he has never bothered about taking out naturalization papers to make himself Frenchman, and now he is a failure and may at any moment become a public charge, which is a crime in any country. Unhappy man! In this age of aggressive nationalism the life of an international no-account is not a happy one.

Ten short years ago he meant to retire and live on his rentes. Then he was prosperous. But he delayed too long, and the lean times came. When he could no longer afford to advise his business friends of his intended retirement—the postage being such a heavy item—he merely had to remain n harness. What else was there to do? And now he has no office; but the curb is a good place. Que voulez-vous? Offices are often stuffy, but here under God’s open sky one may breathe freely and catch one’s clients on the wing. By leave of the sergent de ville one may meet and foregather with old cronies, laugh at their stale jokes, until the voice of law and order says, ‘Pass along, Messieurs, pass along.’

Sometimes, though, not often, Nitchevitch’s bleary eyes are made to overflow with salty happiness when an old acquaintance nudges him en passant. Oh, it is good to be taken notice of when one gets old and—who says poor? No, no! We refuse to have that world applied to an old member of an exclusive circle who black coat shows not a single speck of dust and whose boots shine, veritably, like black pearls.

Sometimes, and generally after his wife has pointed to an empty larder, he may have to muster sufficient aggressiveness to squeeze himself into a deal. There is not always the opportunity, but it is going to present itself today even as we watch.

The French shopkeeper of the Rue du Bac in the Faubourg St.Germain is offering to Senor Lopez a fine secondhand jewel, a snuff box in solid gold exquisitely chased and set with Indian emeralds and rubies, and bordered with rose diamonds. Senor Lopez knows a genuine antique and scents a bargain. He really should not discuss the price at all, since it is being offered so cheaply, but pay what is asked; but from force of habit he fences for a rebate. However, at last, seeing that the deal is attracting the attention of the other dealers, he pulls out a roll of bedraggled notes and begins reluctantly to peel off the appropriate number.

But before the notes have had time to pass from buyer to seller, he who had contemplated retirement ten years ago on his own fat, and has now nothing but a couple of francs in his pocket, sings out, “Monsieur Lopez, I am in this deal with you up to a ten per cent risk!”

The Portuguese Jew looks daggers. But he can do nothing. Custom is rigid on the point. He knows well that there is no way of shaking off the infliction of an associate who is not going to invest a centime, who cannot contribute his share if a loss were to eventuate, and who will presently state how much he must be paid to be got rid of.

By and by, before the sun has gone down, Senor Lopez will offer Monsieur Nitchevitch so many hundred of francs to surrender his mythical interest. The latter, you might think, will be satisfied with any kind of offer, but not he. He will drive a desperate bargain, thinking all the time of the nagging wife at home and her empty larder. Finally, however, he will surrender his claim with a generous sweep of the hand, clutch nervously at the billes de cents, and make off to his obscure and mysterious abode.

You would perhaps call this blackmail. Business, strictly speaking, it is not. But it is the custom. On the whole, however, dealing in gems is a matter of diamond cut diamond and devil take the loser. Take the romantic tale of Jules Grun, Blisky, and Madame Moulin, depicting love among the pearl dealers.

It is really fortunate for you that I happen to know Jules Grun, the millionaire pearl merchant. Thus I take you to his office in that building on the other side of the street. Up one flight of stairs only, so we need not bother, about that narrow-chested wheezy lift. Here we are. Fine waiting room, luxurious carpets, handsome furniture, and the coziest of armchairs to make callers forget the painful suspense of waiting. But we will not sit down. Taking advantage of our cloak of darkness, we got right into the inner office and look about us.

Of the three people at work here you need take not notice at all of two. They are mere paid servants, nobodies. The one person who matters here, for he proclaims it often enough, is Jules Grun himself. There he sits, behind the large flat desk, bald-headed, full-faced, ruddy, and prosperous.

Besides ourselves there is another visitor, a visible one. He is an ordinary-looking person, Blisky by name, a broker. Everybody in the trade knows Blisky. Between Grun, the merchant, and Blisky, the broker, there lie on the table three bunches of oriental pearls. They have already given rise to great deal of talk before we came on the scence, but Blisky is still talking in the manner of brokers the world over, glibly and with serpentine guile, and there is nothing to show that he will ever stop.

Grun talks little. He contents himself with taking up one bunch after another, scrutinizing it carefully through a powerful lens, for the tenth time perhaps. Then he shakes his head from side to side, as pearl merchants do who are interested but intend to conceal it. Finally, he pushes them all together and towards the broker and grunts, “My first bid, Blisky, was more than generous. They are not worth more. You are foolish not to pass my offer on to your client.”

“I am very sorry, Monsieur Grun,” says Blisky, “but I have too much respect for myself to face my client with such a poor offer. He is temporarily embarrassed, as I told you, but there are limits.”

“People who are temporarily embarrassed for ready money should not deal in pearls,” says Grun pompously.

“Maybe yes and maybe no,” says Blisky in a huffed tone, “but as it is not my business to tell my clients what to do and what not to do, that gets us nowhere. You are acting crazy when you allow these bunches to slip through your fingers like this. I suppose you are so rich already that you absolutely refuse to make more money! You are getting to be such a hard nut, too, Monsieur, I warn you, that most brokers are scared to come to you. Were it not that four hundred thousand francs are not everyone’s money, I should not sit here now, be sure. But where in Paris is there another dealer who can lay his hands on so much cash at a moment’s notice?”

“But that is the reason, my dear Blisky, why I want to buy at my own price!”

Just then a clerk enters the room and hands the merchant a slip of paper. He glances at it and says, “Show the lady in,” and turning to the broker adds, “If you care to wait in the next room, I may have another look presently.”

There enters briskly, brushing past the retiring Blisky, a woman middle-aged, good-looking and self-possessed. With business-like directness she states her requirements immediately. A client of hers needs so many pearls of such a size and quality for three sautoirs. If Monsieur has them in stock, she can vouch for a sure sale and spot cash.

Grun almost gasps, but not quite. Strange coincidence! The fellow in the next room has the very thing tucked away in his leather wallet. What luck that he asked him to wait!

“Madame Moulin!,” he says impressively, “I believe I can accommodate your client, but the goods are out at the moment. If you will give me an hour, I will recall them and you can submit them to your client.”

Blisky, however, though a decent fellow and no eavesdropper, has happened to hear all this. The door has been left ajar by accident, and now he knows what is afoot. He decides he is tired of waiting, in spite of the luxuriousness of the waiting room and the comfort of the easy chair. He let himself out and travels down in the groaning lift—for he never believes in walking if he can ride.

He has not long to wait in the street below. Voiture! Voiture! There they go, Madame Moulin and Blisky, as fast as the crock in the shafts of the creaking four wheeler will take them, towards the glittering facades of the Rue de la Paix. The jeweler with whom they are presently closeted is in the worst position a jeweler can possibly be. Fancy having to pay the full price asked because the order is pressing and he has been given carte blanche by this client!

That evening the two brokers are seen to dine tete-a-tete at Voisin’s. The next day Madame Veuve Moulin’s concierge shakes his head knowingly when takes up for the first time to her tiny flat a bouquet of flowers too large to squeeze through the narrow doorway.

From that day bouquets almost of the dimensions of cart wheels arrive everyday for nearly three weeks. Of a sudden they cease coming, and Madame Veuve Moulin that was ventures a faintly cynical remark across the breakfast table. Monsieur Blisky just lowers his morning paper and says, “Cherie, soyez raisonnable. Am I not now paying for cabbages and peas for two?”