PEARLS
From one of the humblest of life forms, the
mollusc, the Pearl is created - a gem of unsurpassed beauty and elegance.
Pearls come in a bewildering variety of shapes,
colours and sizes.
Round Pearls traditionally command the highest prices but it's worth remembering that wild Natural Pearls are rarely round.
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| Aquamarine & Pearl Necklace - Sterling Silver (925)
Freshwater Pearls possess a whimsical charm entirely different to the perfectly shaped Pearls.
 Golden Citrine, Freshwater Pearl & Swarovski Crystal Necklace & Earrings Set - Sterling Silver (925) Baroque Pearls have an irregular shape that can range from minor aberrations to distinctly ovoid (egg-shaped, 3 dimensional version of an oval shape), curved, pinched, or lumpy shapes. They were highly prized by Renaissance jewellers, who saw them not as misshapen products of sea molluscs but rather as unique and exquisite natural forms. 
Pearls are found inside a living creature, an oyster and
are the result of a biological process, the oyster's way of protecting itself
from foreign substances.
Oysters are not the only type of mollusc that can produce
Pearls.
Clams and mussels can also produce Pearls, but that is a much rarer occurrence.
Most Pearls are produced by oysters in both freshwater and saltwater
environments.
Most pearls can be
found all over the world, but black pearls are indigenous to the South Pacific.
An oyster forms Pearls by secreting a mineral substance
called nacre (aragonite and
calcite) and uses it to
quarantine an irritant (most often a parasite).
The formation of a Natural Pearl begins when a foreign
substance slips into the oyster between the mantle and the shell, which
irritates the mantle (kind of like the oyster getting a splinter).
The oyster's natural reaction is to cover up that irritant to protect itself.
The mantle covers the irritant with layers of the same nacre substance that is
used to create the shell. This eventually forms a Pearl.
Freshwater Pearls are cultured by inserting a small piece of
mantle tissue into an incision made in the mantle of a host mussel. A bead is
not needed and is rarely used except in beaded cultured freshwater pearl
production (CBSB fireball pearls).
Cultured Pearls
are created by the same process as natural Pearls, but are given a slight nudge
by pearl harvesters. To create a cultured Pearl, the harvester opens the oyster
shell and cuts a small slit in the mantle tissue. Small irritants (bead) are
then inserted under the mantle. In Freshwater Cultured Pearls, cutting the
mantle is enough to induce the nacre secretion that produces a Pearl - an
irritant doesn't have to be inserted.While Cultured and Natural Pearls are considered to be of
equal quality, Cultured Pearls are generally less expensive because they aren't
as rare.
Pearl Hunting in United Arab Emirates.
Before the beginning of the 20th century, the only means of obtaining pearls was by manually gathering very large numbers of pearl oysters (or pearl mussels) from the ocean floor (or lake, or river bottom). The bivalves were then brought to the surface, opened, and the tissues searched. More than a ton were searched in order to find at least 3-4 quality pearls.
In order to find enough pearl oysters, free-divers were often forced to descend to depths of over 100 feet on a single breath, exposing them to the dangers of hostile creatures, waves, and drowning, often as a result of shallow water blackout on resurfacing. Because of the difficulty of diving and the unpredictable nature of natural pearl growth in pearl oysters, pearls of the time were extremely rare and of varying quality. 
Pearl diver in Japan.
Today, Pearl diving has largely been supplanted by Cultured Pearl farms, which use a process widely popularized and promoted by Japanese entrepreneur Kokichi Mikimoto (Mikimoto Pearls). |
