Be careful of so-called "Japanese Akoya Pearl" on eBay

It comes to my attention and some sellers are selling so-called "Japanese Akoya Pearls" on eBay. I would suggest all buyers to be more prudent of buying those "Japanese Akoya Pearls", especially on eBay. With the increasing quality and volume of Chinese Akoya, majority of market share of Japanese Akoya pearls have been overtaken by Chinese Akoyas. Although Japanese Akoya is still holding a very small piece of market share of Top-quality and larger sized Akoya pearls. Chinease Akoya pearls have monopolized the rest of market in recent years. It's been proven that China is now producing high quality akoya pearls which can compete with their Japanese counterparts in every quality factor. If you are really looking for a strand of genuine Japanese Akoya pearl necklace and don't care about the price, I would recommend you buy it from different channel, not from eBay. I know some creditable and trustable Americian sellers travel to Japan to import genuine Japanese Akoays and then sell them on their own e-Commerce website. Please try search "Akoya Pearls" on google and buy from them. Here are some personal tips about how to differentiate Japanese Akoya and Chinese Akoya.
* Size
The majority Chinease Akoya pearls are less than 7.5-8mm in size,it's very rare that Chinese Akoya pearls are larger than 8-8.5mm. Some expensive Japanese Akoya pearls can grow up to 8.5-9mm or even larger than 9mm. We were told by our Chinese pearl farm supplier that lots of Japanese went to their pearl farm to buy all the Akoya pearls of their harvest. Not sure if those Japanese resell them to their customer with a "Japanese Akoya" name or use the smaller sized Akoya pearls as nucleus to culture larger sized pearls.
* Price Tag
Chinese Akoya pearls are much more affordable than Japanese Akoya pearls. A decent quality of 7.5-8mm Chinease Akoya necklace shoud be priced less than $1000.00-1500, no matter on eBay or any seller's e-Commerce website. While, the same sized genuine Japanese Akoya pearls may double or triple this price. If you see a strand of so-called "Japanese Akoya" pearl necklace with a price of less than $100 bucks, please be careful.
* Item and seller location
If you see a strand of "Japanese Akoya" pearl necklace is not selling by a Japanese seller and item location is not in Japan, most likely, those Akoya pearls are not Japanese Akoya Pearls. A strand of genuine Japanese Akoay pearl necklace can be essily sold out for hundreds or even thousands of dollars, there is no reason a seller imports those expensive gems and sells them on eBay for several dollars or hundred bucks.