Always wondered where cultured freshwater pearls come from?
Read on.
When a mollusk gets an irritation in it’s shell it secretes a substance called ‘nacre’. This is to protect it’s soft body. The layers of nacre around the irritation is what becomes a pearl.
Many people think that a grain of sand is what causes a pearl in the wild but that’s not how it happens. In nature, a mollusk is more likely to get a microscopic worm or sea parasite in it. Natural, wild pearls are rare today. The mollusks that produce pearls have become extinct due to over fishing and pollution. When they do produce a pearl, it is rare that they are large or beautiful enough to use.
That’s why most of the freshwater pearls we get today are grown on farms. Pearls from these farms are ‘cultured pearls’. These farmers have many of the same issues that a farmer that grows corn might have. They might lose mollusks to disease or natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes. Japan lost most of it’s ability to produce pearls to the devastating red tide.
On pearl farms a skilled technician places an irritant in the pearl. If they aren’t careful about how they place the irritant, they may kill the mollusk. In most round pearls a round bead called a ‘nucleus’ from the shell of another mollusk is used as an irritant. Pearls made from a round bead are ‘nucleated pearls’. The nucleus is placed in the mollusk with a piece of mantle tissue that makes the irritant easier to accept. Most often the farmers hope for a round pearl.
They hope…mollusks don’t really care what shape it is so they do whatever they want. That’s why rounder pearls are more valuable and usually cost more than ones that are less round.
Clik here to view.
Flameball Nucleated Freshwater Pearls
Clik here to view.
White Round Freshwater Nucleated pearls
For freshwater pearls that are more nugget shaped or rice krispies shaped a piece of tissue is used as an irritant. Those pearls are ‘non-nucleated’ or ’tissue graft’ pearls.
There is no way to determine what kind of irritant was used without possibly damaging the pearl. Some shapes we know are nucleated. For example, coin pearls, crosses and squares were nucleated with beads that were in that shape.
After the irritant is placed in the mollusk the creatures are cared for and watched for at least 2 to 3 years. It takes that long to form a thick enough layer of nacre to produce a good quality pearl. It’s a little tricky to produce a fabulous pearl though because the longer the pearl stays in the mollusk the more it may become misshapen or spotted. Shorter cultivation time produces a larger yield of rounder, smoother pearls. The problem is they may not have the same durability as a pearl left in the mollusk longer. On the other hand a pearl that has stayed in the mollusk longer has more layers of nacre and will be more durable and last longer but it’s far more likely to be misshapen and have surface imperfections.
So you can see why a round pearl in AAA quality with a thick layer of nacre is so dang costly.
There are so many things a pearl farmer can not control even with the help of science and new techniques. In the end, they are at the mercy of nature. The mollusk may reject the irritant or they may not survive the implantation. Sometimes it’s something in the environment like hurricanes and earth quakes that destroys the crop. Like in the case of Japan’s cultured pearl industry that was devastated by the dreaded red algae. The first attempts of the American cultured pearl industry (yep, the U.S. gave it a try!) were destroyed by chemicals leaching into the water from road work nearby where they were using lime.
Harder than you thought to get pearls? Leave a comment by clicking on ‘comments’ below.
Please ‘like’ this and share it with your friends!
The post How The Hell Are Cultured Freshwater Pearls Made? appeared first on .