From the beginning of organized societies pearls have been treasured when found. Virtually all natural pearls, that is those created in a mollusk without any human intervention, were (and are) the product of the mollusk’s immune system.  When a small parasite entered the mollusk’s shell, the mollusk responded by laying a deposit of nacre  (the stuff of its shell) over it.   Over time, the mollusk added layer after layer of nacre over the encapsulated parasite; and a pearl was born.  Natural pearls, though found in both fresh and salt water mollusks, are relatively rare; but in some places the conditions have been ‘perfect’ for pearl production; so, in relative terms, pearls abounded in them.   I use the past tense because the rise of a truly world wide market for luxury goods (after A.D. 1500) had made continuous harvesting of natural pearls so profitable that harvesting nature’s pearl beds (for salt water pearls, principally the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Venezuela and the Sea of Cortez) to complete depletion usually occurred less than 200 years after they were discovered.  The same is true of the great sources for fresh water pearls, the most important having been the Mississippi River’s watershed; so before 1900 salt water pearls had become extremely rare, as had gem quality fresh water peals.

The  dearth of natural pearls encouraged many, among them Kokichi Mikimoto, to undertake practical research into “cultivating” clams to produce them; and in the early 1900s Mikimoto was successful.  His technique, using the little Akoya oyster native to Japanese waters, was to capture the oyster larva, grow them for two to three years and then implant a sphere (most usually one cut out of mollusk shell) and an irritant into each of them.  With luck, the oyster responded to the irritant by encapsulating it, and the implanted ball, in nacre.  Dogged patience was required and even then about 40% of each crop of nucleated oysters either died or failed to produce a pearl of acceptable appearance.  Nonetheless, Mr. Mikimoto persevered and prospered.  His success led to a Japanese cultured pearl industry that was solidly in place as the 1930s began.   The outbreak of war between the United States and Japan in 1941 brought Japan’s cultured pearl business to a halt; but at war’s end it was successfully resumed.

In the years following the war Japanese success in cultivating pearls caught the attention of other nations around the Pacific littoral; and one by one nations bordering the Indian Ocean and the adjacent Pacific islands began to experiment with the local Pinctada maxima oyster. By the early 1960s Australia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Burma were beginning to produce large cultured pearls in colors that ranged from a creamy white to a golden hue; but they produced no “black” pearls.

These are cultivated in the black-lipped oyster, Pinctada margaritifera, in the waters of French Polynesia.   As pearls are always the same color as the nacre deposited inside the shell, almost none of  the pearls of French Polynesia are actually black.  Instead they range in color from silver to charcoal, or to any one of a myriad of colors that, while fundamentally a shade of gray, display colors ranging from a “plummy” purple to an iridescent green.  As the mussel is large, so too are the pearls produced by it.  While Akoya pearls rarely exceed 8 millimeters in diameter, those produced by Pinctada margaritifera are seldom smaller than 9 millimeters in diameter and have ranged to very close to 21 millimeters (20.92 mm) in diameter.  Truly, the pearls of French Polynesia are breathtaking in both size and beauty.

In recent years China has entered the pearl business in a big way, raising Akoya oysters for pearls in its more northerly coastal waters and fresh water mollusks in its major river systems.  Owing to the great volume of Chinese fresh water cultured pearls, larger cultured pearls have become more approachable in price than in the past.

The soft luster of pearls makes them very different from the Hearts On Fire diamond.  Each meticulously cut Hearts On Fire brightly blazes with fire that is almost blinding.  Its rare beauty, greater than that of any pearl, makes it the perfect gift to express your deepest emotions.  For an anniversary, an engagement or to mark one of life’s other significant events, nothing will say “I love you” as perfectly as the Hearts On Fire.  What else would you expect of the world’s most perfectly cut diamond?   Check out our Hearts On Fire collection on line at hurstsberwynjewelers.com; then phone us at 708.788.0880 for an appointment to select the perfect gift to speak for you.  We’re Hursts’ Berwyn Jewelers; and we’ll help you realize your dreams.