Mikimoto Pearls

Only the best quality cultured pearls are termed 'Hanadama Pearls' or 'Flower pearls' and these types of pearls are premier pearls, the finest cultured pearls in the world.

The MIKIMOTO sorting process and grading system assures that every customer acquires only the finest quality cultured pearls available.

The Mikimoto Pearl Pyramid represents the quantity and quality of all cultured pearls harvested in Japan. Only these cultured pearls are considered worthy enough to carry the MIKIMOTO name.

Blue Lagoon, Gordon’s Classic Collection, Sea Magic and Zales Signature Collection

There are also exclusive pearl jewelry lines distributed by MIKIMOTO. These lines are Blue Lagoon, Gordon’s Classic Collection, Sea Magic and Zales Signature Collection for Zales Jewelry. They should not however be confused with MIKIMOTO brand pearls. Although they represent high quality pearls at a good value, they do not meet the MIKIMOTO brand control standards.

The History of Mikimoto Pearls

Mikimoto, was 35 when he succeeded in culturing a round pearl in 1905. Click here for detailed information on the history of Cultured Pearls.

However, there still remains much controversy over the actual early Discovery of the Cultivating Pearl Technique.

Mikimoto first opened a pearl accessory store in Tokyo's Ginza district and exhibited his pearls at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1937, winning global fame.

Experts said the only difference between a Cultured Pearl and a Natural Pearl was the artificial "nucleus" at its heart, but otherwise there was no difference in the structure. Thus, a globally recognized Japan Brand Pearl was born.

Looking back through the pages of the history of Mikimoto, the following story is one of the most remarkable stories you will ever hear about the legend of Mikimoto, the pioneer in developing modern techniques for culturing pearls and then convincing the public to accept them as valuable.........

One of the worst tricks you could play on a woman is tell her that the best way to clean Mikimoto pearls is to swish them through boiling water. As the pearls heat they will lose their moonbeam lustre, and will crack.

Yet back in 1932, all Japan honored a short, stocky, crinkly-faced old man who rolled up his kimono sleeves, seized a blunt spade and vigorously shoveled into a fiery furnace 720,000 of his best Mikimoto pearls.

Within three minutes, all of Mr Mikimoto's 720,000 highest quality pearls had turned to flaky ashes.

Gathered around the furnace were Japan's leading pearl dealers. "Banzai!" they shouted. "May you live 10,000 years, oh Most Honorable Kokichi Mikimoto! Banzai! The price of pearls has risen!" The price had indeed risen by some 30%, all because Kokichi Mikimoto had shoveled 720,000 pearls into a furnace.

Unlike Brazilians who have burned coffee in the past to raise prices, Mr. Mikimoto had burned up nothing edible or useful and nothing that was not his own.

Information on Pearls from Oct. 31, 1932, Time magazine, says that from the fiery furnace, Mr Mikimoto stepped back a unique hero of the Depression. It wasn't the Mikimoto pearls that mattered to him as much as the fact that what he had really burned up was his lifelong dream.

The story goes, that Mr. Mikimoto had bought a prominent hill and dreamed of erecting on it a hollow tower which he proposed to fill with pearls as a farmer fills an elevator with grain. "My reason," Mr. Mikimoto used to say, "is to give pleasure to women of generations yet unborn, who will wear pearls from my tower—Mikimoto pearls!''

Oysters make both Natural Pearls and Mikimoto pearls. When Mother Nature annoys an oyster by allowing a tiny flea-bite of irritating substance to get under its shell, the oyster replies by covering it with layer on layer of pearly nacre, and the result is called an Oriental or Natural pearl.

When Mr. Mikimoto annoys the oysters in his 41,000 acres of oyster beds by having a minute substance delicately inserted in the body of each oyster, the oysters react by producing about $1,000,000 worth of Mikimoto pearls a year.

In gratitude Mr. Mikimoto erected a monument to the Mikimoto oysters.

In the 1930s nothing so infuriated Natural pearl men and nothing so delighted Mr. Mikimoto as a decision of the French courts which he used to quote from memory on all occasions thus:
"Japanese culture pearls [Mikimoto]; produced by scientific stimulation of the oyster are in no sense false or imitation pearls. . . . They can be sold as real pearls without any indication of their origin."

Not only in Japan but around the world, Mikimoto, is the undisputed "Cultured Pearl King." He only spoke Japanese and proud of his eccentricities, Mikimoto loved to entertain visitors to his pearl farm.

First they were given baskets of Mikimoto oysters.

Next, Mikimoto disciples opened each guest's oysters, extracted the pearls and presented them to the guests, and threw the oyster meat and shells away.

Mikimoto then led the way to lunch, which started with fried oysters in which the guests would find badly discolored pearls.

Mr. Mikimoto always wore a Derby hat and a Japanese kimono. The Derby hat, (introduced in 1849 by William Bowler in England) when worn with a Japanese kimono, in the Japanese culture, means that the wearer has achieved a special rank, by his own achievements.

In that context, I think that British expatriate and pearl farmer in Australia, Mr William Saville-Kent should have been wearing a Japanese Kimono!

However eccentric Mr Mikimoto may have been with his Mikimoto pearls, one things for certain, he did achieve his dream and today is the undisputed pearl champion of the cultured pearl-world who stamped his own name onto Cultured Pearls in the process.

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