Pearl are hard masses formed in living mollusks shells. They have a smooth surface and lustrous appearance. This makes them popular addition to jewelry and accessories. Basic shapes used to design jewelry are round, pear, drop, oval, baroque, flat, semi-round, and semi-baroque. Perfectly round is rare, so is most valuable. Cultured pearls are less expensive options.

Natural and cultured

When parasite enters mollusk and embed in its soft mantle, the mollusk starts to cover it with a sac forming nacre layers around it. Nacre is the shiny, smooth substance that makes interior. Overtime the layers of nacre accumulated around irritant harden and form into a pearl. Read relevant blogs for more information about natural and cultured pearls.

Out of 8,000 mollusk species only 20 make pearls regularly. Nacre thickness defines its durability. It means time is required for allowing the nacre to get thicker. Natural pearls get sold by carat.

Today, farms are built to grow pearls. The entire process is controlled ranging from oyster breeding to manual nucleation to nurturing and harvesting. The pearl formation process is similar but in culturing process the bead is implanted in the oyster manually then the oysters are kept in a safe and nutritious environment till harvest.

Freshwater versus saltwater

Majority of freshwater natural pearls are obtained from mussels living in rivers, lakes, and ponds. Freshwater cultured pearls get created when mussels own mantle is inserted in its flesh.

Saltwater natural pearls are produced by special pearl oyster species. South Sea, Tahitian, and Akoya pearls are common saltwater pearls. Saltwater cultured pearls are near to round shape.

Body colors versus overtone

Body colors are warm or cool hues and its overtone is the color that floats on pearl surface. The body color depends on water, nucleus implanted and mollusk type.

Grading

Grading determines the pearls value. Two tiered systems the AAA-A and A-D grading are used as guidelines. In the former AAA is best with 85% defect free surface and high luster, whereas in the latter A is the flawless pearl.

Famous pearls

• The Abernathy Pearl holds reputation of most perfect pearl and weighed 44 grains.
• The Big Pink Pearl weighs 470 Carats and is valued at $4.7 million.
• The Hope Pearl weighs 450 Carats, is tear shaped with colors ranging from greenish to gold.