Courageous Cultured Pearls

Actually, Cultured Pearls, are formed as a result of an inflicted wound. The navel or nucleolus of a cultured pearl, is a tissue implant.

Pearls, both Cultured and Natural are the result of the Mother-of-Pearl oyster secreting a healing mantle over the wound.

The injury, to a Mother's core, caused by planting a foreign object, into the Mother-of-Pearl oyster's soft tissue, by way of human interference, may result in either the death of the Mother-of-Pearl oyster or one very Courageous Cultured Pearl.

Natural Pearls on the hand, from Alpha to Omega, are completely Natural with no artificial nucleolus at it's central core. The original injury to the Mother's core, was not caused by man.

Read the Historiette of Cultured Pearls HERE

To add insult to injury, many of these pearls have also been modified. A modified pearl, that has required or has undergone any type of modification or treatment. This information, should be disclosed at the point of sale, but sigh, it often isn't.

Those modifications, presently known, that require specific information to be disclosed at the point of sale include: Bleaching, Coating, Cutting, Dyeing including Tinting, Filling, Heating, Irradiation, Oiling and Waxing.

These types of pearls are more affordable than Rare Natural Pearls, although they are not your "cheap types of pearls" either as the price tag on the Mikimoto Pearl necklace attests. (see image further down the page).

Wear your moonlight orbs with responsible excess, with jeans and a T-shirt or lightly caressing the shoulder of that little black dress. Whether your pearls might appear in the form of an antique engagement ring or three strands of ovoid-shaped vari-coloured cultured pearls, these gems will forever be, moonlight rays of light to highlight a woman's natural beauty.

Tread carefully. More knavery & cunning to be found in this area. In fact, the marketplace is full of undeclared Pearl Imitations.

Purchase pearls from a trusted source. Be really careful when buying over the internet as you can't handle the pearls and never accept at face-value what a salesperson tells you. It pays to up on the subject.

A list of favorite books about pearls can be found HERE

If you are uncertain if your cultured pearls are genuine cultured or faux pearls, a guide to identifying cultured pearls from faux pearls is available here...

The Pearl Grading System will bring you up to speed and have you grading pearls like the experts.

Don't be put-off by Faux pearls or imitations, if declared, they were the preference of French designers in the 1920s. Coco Chanel always wore a pearl necklace and often incorporated imitation pearls or faux pearls into her own costume jewelry designs - Chanel costume jewelry. Pearls were also a perfect gem for inclusion into the naturalistic style of the earlier Art Nouveau Jewelry design.

The origins of both Natural Pearls and cultured gems are from the sea and only one little pearl is ever produced by an oyster in it’s’ lifetime. It's a lot of hard work for an oyster to produce a pearl!

The traditional round pearls are usually cultured from saltwater pearl oysters, different from edible oysters, which do not produce the same pearly nacre.

Artisans who create handmade wedding jewelry often choose pearls to add elegance and classicism to a piece of handmade silver jewellery.

When grading cultured pearls, in terms of fine quality, MIKIMOTO Pearls are the industry benchmark.

Some pearl companies have conveniently devised their own pearl grading system. Tread with caution, especially when buying new pearl jewelry and also if the price "seems to good to be true".

How Cultured Pearls are Made

To induce the oyster to make a pearl on command, a skilled technician inserts a tiny round bead. typically made of shell taken from an American freshwater mussel and a piece of mantle tissue from another oyster inside the host oyster's gonad.

This causes a pearl sack to form around the irritant bead. The sack begins to secrete nacre, coating the bead. After a period of time, a pearl is ready to be harvested.

Pearl Connoisseurs say the queen of cultured pearls, are the South Sea Pearls. Information on South Sea Pearls Can Be Found HERE...

As for Natural Pearls - an American skyscraper once exchanged hands for the price of a pearl necklace!

The most popular and convincing substitutes for Natural pearls are the Akoya Cultured Pearls, commonly seen in pearl necklace strands, earrings and solitaire rings.

Akoya pearls and Mikimoto cultured pearls are the specialty of Japanese pearl farms.

It took Mikimoto 10 years to find just the right Mikimoto pearls for this $1,000,000 Mikiomoto Pearl Necklace that you see here.

It set the record for the highest price ever paid for a cultured pearl necklace strand at $2.3 million, auctioned by Sotheby’s in 1992. The 17-inch strand had 23 pearls with diameters ranging from 16 to 20mm, and a bead-shaped platinum clasp of 60 round diamonds.

To give you a comparison, a 16 inch strand of white South Sea cultured pearls can retail for $40,000 to $50,000.

Click Here For Further Info About Grading Pearls. The size of the pearl has to do with the age and the type of the oyster that created the pearl (the more mature oysters produce larger pearls) and the location in which the pearl was cultured.

The best pearls are those that come from an oyster that dies after the pearl is removed. Oysters that do not die after the pearl has been extracted produce what are referred to as “Biwa” pearls. Generally but not always, Biwa pearls fetch a lower price.

How to Weigh a Pearl

How much does your bucket of pearls weigh? The measurement for weighing cultured pearls is the CARAT and the GRAIN and the MOMME. And in India Jewelry pearls may be weighed in CHAV; an India term for weighing pearls, we discovered from one of our visitors from India.

The momme is an old Japanese measure of weight still used for all pearls. One momme is equal to 3.75 grams or 18.75cts.

The exception is the baroque pearls which are usually impossible to measure because of their irregularity. Consequently, baroque pearls are measured by sieve.

A rare type of pearl is produced by the abalone and are called Abalone Pearls. These pearls are not cultured though, but are natural pearls and are highly collectible because they are natural and often come in unusual shapes and have unique tints.

Click Here to Find Out How To Care For Pearls.

Saltwater & Freshwater Pearls

Cultured Freshwater Pearls (CFWP) is another type of pearl altogether and is causing a lot of excitement in the pearling industry at present.

Of all the Natural saltwater pearls, South Sea pearls are the most rare. Born when a foreign particle makes its way into a host oyster, in the pristine salt waters where the temperature is gentle and the atmosphere nurturing, this type of pearl with a strange perfection bears the fingerprints of forever.

Have You Seen the Jewel-of-the-Month Yet?

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