The gift that Pain Begets

For all those who contemplate their plate of oysters on the half shell hoping to discover a precious pearl, here is a bit of advice-don't wast your time. While technically, any mollusk that produces a shell can produce pearls those from edible oysters have very lustre, poor quality and really resemble pebbles rather than pearls. The fact is that the edible oyster is a very distant relative of the oysters varities that produce precious gem quality pearls.

While we are on the subject, let us also debunk another widely accept myth. Contrary to popular brlief, pearls hardly ever result from the intrusion of a grain of sand into an oyster's shell. Instead what happens usually is that an irrant such as a wayward food paricle or some other organic matter gets trapped into the soft inner body of oyster and it is unable to expel it. This bring us to the title of our story. This intruder is extremly irritating to the oyster and in an effort to alleviate its discomfort it coat the object with layer upon layer of nacre, which is essentailly the same substance that is uses to build its shell. The result of this discomfort ot the metaphorical pain referred to in our title is a shinning glowing jewel that we know of as a pearl. Regardless of whether the pearl is natural or cultured its genesis is the pain an oyster has to undergo and that adds to its symbolic value. It is uncertain whether the acient culteres that valued pearls understood the process that produced them, nevertheless the stories and legend s that they wove about this marine treasure also hint at a painful origin. The ancient Greeks said that they were Goddess Aphodite's tears. The Arabs had a far more romantic explanation about the information of pearls were really dewdrops filled with moonlight that fell into the ocean and were swallowed by oysters. Before we go on to discuss the more technical aspects of pearls, let us take a look at pearls in human history.

1. Baroque pearls can be creatively used to produce "one of a kind" jewels.

Pearls actually predate human history by millions of years. Pearls date back to the eariliest shelled mollusks about 530 million years ago,give or take a couple of million years. The oldest evidence of pearls however, is believed to be the rounded depressions found on a bivalve dated around around 200 million years ago.

Throughout human history,pearls and the shell of mullusks that produced them have enhanched man. Archaeological evidence has shown that almost 6,000 years ago people in the Persain Gulft region were somtimes buried with a pierced pearl in their right hand. As the ancient trade routes developed any expanded and as socirties established themselves across Asia and Europe ,pearls become important symbols of welth, status and religious belief. However not all societies placed a premium on pearls.People like the Sumerains, pre Comlumbain Americans and many Pacific islander valued the mother of pearl more than the pearl itself. In fact, Polynesains used to give the pearls to their children to play marbles with.

Ancient Middle Eastern cultures were apparently the first to value pearls and mother of pearl. In Persia for example, pearls were said to be worth their weight in gold. Interestin pearls then spread on to the Mediterranean regions. By 100 B.C the enthusaism for pearls was believed to have become a craze. In fact, it is often speculated that Julais Caeser's conquest of Britain in 55 B.C. was to obtain the source of freshwater perals from the river Tay in Scotland. Archealogical sites across the former Roman Empire, form Syria to North Africa and nothern France have yielded peal adorned objects.

It is said that Cleopatra dissolved one of her pearl earrings in a glass of wine ( or vinegar )and drank it to win a bet with Marc Anthony that she could consume the worth that small nation in a single meal. The Roman Gerneral Vitelllus is said to have paid for any entire millitary campaign with the sale of just one of the pair of his mother's pearl earrings.

The ongoing is on going of the America and the of establishment of regular trade routs to the East made pearls more easily available during the Renaissance era beginning in the 1500's. The new centres of the pearls trdae were.Lisbon and Serville and the pearls flowed in from India, the Persain Gulf and the Carribean region.The upper classes began adorning themselves lavishly with pearls, which were the contemporary status symbols of welth, status and power in that age of splendour. Funnily enough,irregularly shaped pearls or what we now call baroque were especailly appreciated for their form. By the 1600's however, a decline in the pearls coming in from the new world along with a changing religious and political climate put the shine of pearls in the shade, so to speak.

1. Golden South Sea pearls from the Phillipines. 2. Pink freshwater pearl. 3. Peacock Tahitian and golden South Sea pearls.

The East had its own love affair with pearls too.The abudance of pearls in the Persains Gulf and the Gulf of Manner,( between India and Sri Lanka ) ensure its popularity in those regions.Hindu and Muslim rulers alike favoured them.Indeed,there is hardly a portrait of a royal personage from the Indain Subcontinent who is not shown adorned with a string of perals.During the 1700's and 1800's,some of the world finest pearls were to be found in the collections of the Hindu and Muslim rulers. The Muslims value it as a symbol of purity and perfection and the Hindus reverse it as a planetary gem associated with the moon.

The Russain aristocracy and gentry both owned opulent pearl jewellery and clothing decorated with pearls. Russain noble women often wore large headdresses called Kokoshniki decorated with pearls.lace and gemstones.Royal workshops pearls objects and often added pearl embroidery to rich textiles, using the gems to create floral design and scroll like patterns in which the pearl served as the borders.

Pearls lost some of thier importance with the introduction of improved techniques for faceting gemstone in the1600's .Diamonds and other coloured gemstones then became more popular than pearls.They were however,still extensively used throughout the 18 th century,especaily among the royal families of Europe whose women wore full sets of matching necklaces,earrings,bracelets and brooches.pearls also adorned religious objects in churches and even syngogues.By the 1800's,the discovery of new pearl beds in the Pacific and the rivival of finishing grounds in Central American revived the interest in pearls considerably.

Pearls of different coloured can be
strung together if their size, shape
and lustre match.

The Qing or Manchu dynasty, which ruled China from 1644-1911, placed quite a huge premium on pearl too. The Imperail family and the quantities of pearl to enhance thier opulent clothing and furnishings. In theory, the Emperor was supposed to only use the pearls got from the fresh water mussels found in Manchuria, the dynasty's homeland. The Imperail art of that quite of few of them must have come from the marine oysters found in the waters of southern China, Vietnam and maybe even the philipines.

1. Akoya pearls, what the general consumer really thinks of when speaking of pearls.
2. Mabe pearls are essentially a dome with a flat back. They are often filled with an epoxy resin for strength and then backed with mother of pearl. These are the most inexpensive pearl variety.

        During the 1700's and early 1800's. the growing middle class in Europe and America also developed an interest in pearls and in the industrial age, they had the money to buy them. By the mid 1800's seed pearls had become the flavour of the day. These were imported from India and China and were strung on either silk or white hosehair. The jewellery of this time was so fine and delicate that it was often linkened to lace and they came to be know as a symbol of purity and gentility.

        The dawn of the 20th century brought with it many changes and among this was the attitude to pearls as well,which came to be seen as the ideal accessory for less formal occassions.Imitation pearl were also popular on hats and dresses. Still, until the early 1900's, natural pearls were only acccessible to the very rich. It is said that Jacques Cartier bought the famous lanmark property on New York 's Fifth Avenue for the Cartier store in 1916 by exchanging it for pearl necklaces.

        The real change came with the introduction of Japanese cultured pearls in the European and American markets in the 1930's. It would be th 1950's however, before cultured pearls would become popular. The introduction of cultured pearls meant that more pearls were available at lower prices than ever before. Cultured pearls really took off in popularity however, when Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel embraced them and used them in her designs and the rest as they say, is history.

Keshii pearls are freeform because they have no nucleus inside to guide their shape.

There are at least 10,000 mollusk species to be found in the world today and there are estimated to be as many species rendered extinct over the course of the past 5,000 million years. Of these, at least 35 species have become extinct in North America alone over the past 50 years. This is a potent indicator of how much responsibility for the extinction of these species lies on the humans. Pollution and over harvesting has indeed done much to drive many breeds to the edge of extinction.

In present times in fact, pearls are no longer found, they are grown,that is to say that there are no more natural s pearls to be found on the market,and almost all the the pearls sold are cultured. The only real difference between natural and cultured pearls is that a natural pearls is the result of an accidental instrusion off an irritant into an oyster's shell where as in a cultured pearl, the irritant is purposely introduced into the oyster by man. The oyster takes over from that point on and the rest of the process is the same for both kinds.

When we think of cultured pearls,what automatically springs to mind is the akoya variety. Akoya pearls are the classic cultured pearls of Japan.In recent year, China has also been successful in producing akoya pearls in her own waters but the lustre of Chinese akoya is inferior to that of the Japanese variety. The akoya pearl oyster's scientific name is the pinctada fucata. Akoya pearls are typically found in sizes that range from 4.0-10 mm.

The Ceylon pearls oyster or pinctada radiata, which is found in three small areas in the westhern Indain Ocean ( Persian Gulf , Red Sea, and Gulf of Mannar), has consistenly dominated the world's pearl market from antiquity till the 1920's and 30's What is remarkable is that the wild populations of this oyster have endure in spite of centuries harvesting. It must be remembered that over harvesting of the North American oysters drove 35 species into extinction. Now effort are no to try and cultivate this pearl oyster.

The Rolls Royse of pearls, top quality white South Sea pearls.

Where the akoya stops,South Sea pearls range in size from 10-14 mm. South Sea pearls commercially grown, are the silver or gold lipped pearl oyster or the pincdata maxima. This is the largest living pearl oyters and this species has been harvested for more than a century in the South Pacific for its mother of pearl. Althought the they were cultured as early as the late 1800's ,the South Sea pearls only came to be widely distributed somtime in the 1970's Modern culturing methods empphisise the white or silver South Sea peals in the Philipines, Mynmar and Japan. What makes these pearls so large is the tropical warmth and the rich nutrients of the waters where they are grown, unlink the colder waters in which the akoya flourish.

        Then there is the pinctada magaritifera or the black lipped pearl oyster which are sold as Tahitain pearls. The pinctada magaritifera has the widest geographical range of all living oysters and is cultured for pearls in the French Polynesian islands as well as in many other areas in the tropical parts of the Pacific Ocean. These are the famous black pearl. Instead it has overstones of gray, green, blue, or rose.

        Black pearls are also produced by another oyster species, the pinctada mazalantica or what is know in the trade as La Paz pearl oyster. In fact, before black lipped pearl oysters were ever cultured,almost of the black pearls in the Western world came from the La Paz Oyster that inhabits the waters of Panama and Baja California. These were part of the precious booty from the new would to the old. Recently, pearl culturing ventures have been set up in the Gulf of California to return the La Paz pearl to the market.

        Then there are the marbe pearls, which come from the pinctada penguin sterna oysters. Mabe pearls are actully cultured blister pearls that form on the oyster's shell rather than in its soft tissues and the resulting shape is a blister of sorts. A mould made of plastic or other materail is inserted between the oyster secrets its layer of nacre over the mould which is then cut from the shell and backed with mother of pearl. Sometimes farmers use shapes other rounds like squares, pears, crosses or whatever is fashionable. Mabe is the most inexpensive pearl variety and due to the large sizes it achieves, it is quite popular in jewellery.

1-2. Culturing pearls involves inplanting a nucleus inside the body of the oyster or mussel to start its nacre production
3. Freshwater pearl mussels produce many pearls at one time.

As mentioned earlier, any mollusk that can produce a shell can produce a pearl. There is, the hali-atis species, which is not really an oyster at all but abalone, which is as prized for its meat as its pearl. In fact abalone pearls are really mabes that form on the abalone shell. Abalones produce beautiful pearls in shades of turquoise, green, rose, and cream. These bright hues come at a price though and abalone mabes cost more than five times the value of regular mabe pearls.

The rarest pearls in the world are the conch pearls that are generally found in the queen conch or the strombus gigas. These pearls are unusual in more ways than one. To start with they do not have the "pearly" lustre of the oyster and mussel pearls but rather they have a porcelain like appearance and come in colours like sunset pink or golds rather than the white and black of the regular pearls. More importantly, all conch pearls are naturals because it is virtually impossible to culture the queen conch. The spiral shape of the conch shell ensures that there is no way to operate on it and introduce the irritant to jumpstart pearl production without killing it. Conch pearls are usually found in the Bahamas, off the coast of Florida, the Yucatans and the Antilles islands. At the most no more than 2000 - 3000 of them are found every year and of these only 15 - 20% are of the gem variety.

There is another variety of pearl that is so rare that it is not even a mainstream product. This is neither cultured nor harvested. We are talking of the fossil pearl. The oldest known fossil pearls date from 230-210 million years ago. These are almost always associated with marine bi-valves, although ancient freshwater mollusks also produced pearls. During a pearl's fossilization, the aragonite (pearl nacre is made up of layers of aragonite and conchiolin) is replaced by calcite or another mineral, but in cross section the fossils show the same concentric layering as in modern pearls. Very rarely, the original aragonite is preserved with its nacreous lustre.

Freshwater pearls, mainly cultured in China , come in a variety of colours, shapes and sizes.

Another kind of natural pearl that is produced by accident is the keshii pearl. Keshii means tiny or "poppy seed" in Japanese. It is unique in that it is a natural all nacre pearl that is produced by oysters impregnated to produce a cultured pearl. Two types of accidents are responsible for the growth of keshii pearls. Sometimes during the culturing process the mantle spits out the nucleating bead and the mantle tissue planted along with the bead begins to develop pearl sacs. Without the bead the pearl sacs form small keshii pearls. Keshi also form when the cultured pearl is growing inside the mollusk and the pieces of implanted mantle tissue develop more pearl sacs. Without a bead to form around, they produce small accidental pearls, which are all nacre and freeform in shape. Most keshii are very tiny but naturally those from the Tahitian or South Sea oysters are larger. They are quite beautiful in their own way.

The pearls we have described thus far are all saltwater or marine pearls but there is another kind of pearl that is all over the market today. We are referring to the freshwater pearl or specifically the Chinese freshwater pearl. Freshwater cultured pearls are the closest thing to natural pearls on the market. That is because unlike their saltwater relatives, they are not bead nucleated but rather tissue nucleated, meaning a small piece of live mantle tissue from another mussel is inserted into slits cut into the body of the mussel to be nucleated. This is in itself enough to start the freshwater pearl mussel on the process of producing a pearl. The great irony is these all nacre pearls are available for a fraction of the cost of bead nucleated marine pearls whose nacre is only a thin coating (usually not more than 1.5mm at most) over the mother of pearl bead at its core.

Although the Chinese were the first to culture freshwater mussels for pearls, their centuries old pearl Buddhas were really just mabes. The first cultured freshwater pearls came from Lake Biwa in Japan and were called Biwa pearls. Soon after their initial success in culturing saltwater pearls, the Japanese pearl farmers began experimenting with the pearl mussels in Lake Biwa, a large lake near Kyoto. The first commercial freshwater pearl crops began appearing in the 1930's and the all nacre Biwas began appearing in all kinds of colours hitherto unseen in saltwater varieties. Later on pollution finished the production of Biwa pearls and by the 1980's the pearl farms on Lake Biwa were barely surviving. However, such had been their popularity that until recently, most freshwater pearls, even those from sources other than Lake Biwa, were called Biwa pearls.

The real action in freshwater pearls however, is in China. At the end of the 1960's, without any real history of pearling, China started producing huge amounts of ridiculously inexpensive pearls. These were soon dubbed "rice krispies" because of their crinkly elongated shapes. However, China was experimenting with improving production. In the 1980's China began producing better shapes and colours and the unnatural dyed hues were toned down to more natural shades. Buying expertise from Japan and the United States, the Chinese continued experimenting, until the 1990's with shapes, sizes and colours that matched the best of Biwa production. In fact, today the Chinese freshwater pearls are round and lustrous enough that they can even be passed off as Japanese akoya.

		What are the factors that affect pearl quality and value? There are six factors that basically affect the value of a pearl. The first and most important of these is size. Here it is important to note, that in marine pearls, it is the nucleus size and not the growth process that determines the final size of the pearl. However, it is not as simple as inserting a larger bead. Small beads (3-7 mm) mean lower mortality rates and a larger harvest, while those larger than 7mm mean a higher percentage of rejection and death of the oyster. Also, larger pearls tend to have more imperfections like spotting, out of roundness, and discolouration thus increasing the rarity and price of large gem quality material. Generally speaking, the average size of the pearls sold today is between 7 - 7.5 mm. Roundness is also an important factor. The rule of thumb is that the rounder or closer to round a pearl is the more valuable it is. Simply put, round pearls cost a lot more than baroque pearls.
Keshii pearls have no nucleus inside them and are entirely composed of nacre.

        As with all gem material, cleanliness is an issue. The more imperfections there are the lower the price of the pearl. The size, location and nature of the imperfections also make a difference as some of them may be done away with by drilling. For example, if there is one imperfection, it can be done away with by 1\2 drilling the pearl on the site of the imperfection. Two flaws in opposing directions can be drilled through and the pearl can be strung. Necklace makers will generally attempt to keep all the imperfections near the drill holes.

        Nacre thickness is important. Sometimes called "cultivation" by dealers, nacre thickness refers to the quantity not quality of the nacre. Cultured pearls that do not have heavy nacre are described as being "thin", and they may show signs of "blinking" as the pearl is rotated. This is caused by the uneven layers of nacre which have not adequately covered the nucleus. This is not desirable.

        Lustre is often confused with nacre thickness but it is in fact all about the quality of the nacre as opposed to the quantity. The lustre of a pearl is determined by the amount of reflected light exhibited from the pearl's surface. High lustre pearls do need a significant amount of nacre though so a lustrous pearl is generally one that is well coated with nacre. The lustre of a good quality pearl should be bright and have a deep seated glow. You should be able to see your own reflection clearly on the surface of the pearl.

Colour is a variable. When it comes to colour, beauty is truly in the eyes of the beholder and one consumer's preference may differ from another's and one connoisseur's opinion need not match that of another. All pearls however exhibit a basic body colour and an overtone colour. This can best be described as make up over a basic skin colour. Overtones enhance and change a pearl's appearance. Some overtone colours may increase the value of a pearl, while others may decrease it. Green, dark creams and gray are not desirable overtone colours for example.

Pearls are often bleached or dyed to improve their appearance

        How can one tell the difference between real and fake pearls? The easiest way is the tooth test. Rub the surface of the pearl over your teeth. A real pearl will feel gritty while a fake pearl will be smooth. Real pearls are made up of layers of nacre that are deposited like sand on a beach. Therefore the slight waves and irregularities in the nacre produces the gritty or bumpy feel on the teeth. The synthetic nacres on manmade pearls are however smoothly applied to the bead inside and therefore feels smooth. However, this is not a reliable test.

        Also not entirely reliable is the sun test. Take the pearls out into the sunlight or put them under a very bright indoor lighting. Unless they are very expensive, genuine pearls will not be perfectly matched under the sun. If they are perfectly matched for colour and overtone and do not cost a king's fortune, they are most probably fake.

        As with diamonds, you see a lot about the quality of a pearl under magnification. Real pearls will show characteristic ridges and irregularities while fakes will exhibit a grainy smoothness. Magnification is also used to look into the drill hole and see the nacre and the core and this will also reveal whether the pearl is real or a fake.

        There are also many visual clues. Real pearls exhibit an inner glow caused by the refraction of light off the layers of nacre, while fakes by and large tend to look flat in comparison. One exception is the Swarovski stimulated pearls and following them, also by other manufacturers. Moreover, real pearls are rarely perfect especially in their roundness, they tend to always be a little off the round and therefore perfect rounds are immediately suspect. Of course surface imperfections are usually the hallmarks of the genuine article too. The nacre of fake pearls tends to flake away near the entrance to the drill hole. Fake pearls also have larger and straighter drill holes than real pearls. Also, the holes of fake pearls often form a shallow bowl shape, while the holes of real pearls are more likely to be flat.

These criteria however, are not foolproof. The only foolproof test is the X ray, which will show the inside of the pearl including variations in its density, the presence or absence of a parasite that might have caused the formation of the natural pearl and the characteristic shapes of drill holes, etc. This test provides the conclusive evidence about the pearl's genuineness.

left to right : Simulated pearls created by Swarovski.
Matching pearls for size, shape, colour, overtone and lustre is an ardous job.

It must be understood that most pearls are treated or enhanced in one way or the other, regardless of whether they are saltwater or freshwater. Pearls are bleached to even out the body colour and are also dyed. The process of dyeing is done only on drilled pearls as the surface nacre is waterproof and not porous. The dye therefore has to be introduced from the drill hole. Irradiation is a more seldom used process and is suspected in the colouration of blue and gray pearls though this is hard to prove.

Pearls are soft and sensitive gems though and care must be excercised to keep them looking beautiful. Perspiration, cosmetics and perfumes are very damaging to pearls. It is therefore necessary to put on makeup and perfume before wearing your pearls. The normal rule is that pearls should be the last thing you put on and the first thing you take off. Pearls should be cleaned in warm lightly soapy water. Gently scrubbing individually with a soft brush.

They should be restrung from time to time and the jeweller should be instructed to knot the string between each pearl. Not only does it prevent damage by preventing the pearls from rubbing against each other, but in case the strand should break, only one pearl will be lost as the knots will hold the others in the strand. They should be stored in a moisture free environment separate from other jewellery and gemstones to prevent scratches or other damage and they should never ever be store in plastic bags. Pearls, it is true generally have a limited lifespan, but if proper care is excercised then you can enjoy these precious jewels from the sea for a long time to come and bequeath them to the future generations of your family as well.
		White South Sea and black Tahitian pearls are a fashion marriage made in heaven.