Whatever Happened to Caged Pearls?

My first “real pearl” necklace was a caged pearl pendant received in the early 80s’ - although that style became popular in the 20’s.  The other day I was wondering why we do not see caged pearls much anymore. They used to be a favorite gift for brides, if a choker style strand was cost prohibitive.  Pearls are also the birthstone of June, so a single pearl would seem like a perfect birthday gift for a young woman.  Given the fashion popularity of pearls right now and the desire for vintage-look jewelry, you would think this might be an alternative offered for those who prefer metal to bead strands.  So I decided to do a web search.  What did I find?

I found sites where I could buy cages to make caged pearl jewelry if I had the pearls. An alternative search option that was given to me was wish pearls.  So I did that and found sites where I could buy wish pearls in order to harvest my own pearl (neat idea for a school show and tell project) and then create a necklace.  If I added the word “vintage” to my original search, I got lots of shopping sites selling mostly costume versions of the cage concept.

Maybe the reason these are not as available now is we can get pearls cheaper than precious metals now.  It used to be the other way around.   However, that does not change the fact that the really neat thing about a caged pearl is you get an entire pearl.  There is no hole drilled for stringing or mounting.  The pearl moves around freely in the cage.  I think this would be a beloved jewelry box item for the pearl girls and collectors out there.

So I still wonder why no jewelers are doing this anymore.  With the returning popularity of the charm bracelet, a pearl jewelry designer should come up with a variety of charms containing caged pearls.  They could use a variety of pearl cages with different pearl shapes and sizes.  Or use a multitude of the animal shaped cages with multiple colors of freshwater pearls for a more fun and youthful look.  Or for more classic look, do only 2 different alternating cages but with each containing another color pearl in each cage, maybe dark colors in gold for Fall and pastels set in silver for Spring.  Or do a mixed-metal look which is very popular by matching the metal to the pearl color: gold for golden/yellow, silver for white or grey, gunmetal for black, and rose for pink.   For a new necklace, how about putting a peacock pearl in birdcage shape pendant?  Cool ideas! Right!? 

What do you think of these ideas and what other ideas do you have?