Ni'ihau Earings.

These are my Ni'ihau shell earrings! Aren't they beautiful? Ni'ihau shells are very precious and expensive. They are very tiny and it takes forever to collect just a few. Uncle Andy told us that when he was a little boy his mother would take him out to the beach to collect shells and she would give him a baby food jar to collect them in. He would work for hours and just fill the bottom of the jar. Ni'ihau shell leis can cost thousands of dollars. The shells wash up on the same beaches at the same times of the year. That's why sometimes it takes years to make a lei. They come in certain colors and luster's. The reason I was so lucky to get a pair of earrings is because we went to teach a lesson and got dissed. I was feeling bad so Wally said lets stop at the Hawaiian Trading Post. He knew I wanted some earrings rather than a lei and we found these. I just love them. Besides being beautiful they didn't cost us thousands. Wally wanted me to get a bracelet too but the sales lady talked us out of it because they are so fragile if I wasn't very careful the shells would break easily.