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The cultured pearls on the market today can be divided into two categories. The first category covers the beaded cultured pearls, including Akoya, South Sea, Tahiti, and the large, modern freshwater pearl, the Edison pearl. These pearls are gonad-grown, and usually one pearl is grown at a time. This limits the number of pearls at a harvest period.
The iridescent nacre inside a nautilus shell Nacreous shell worked into a decorative object. Nacre (/ ˈ n eɪ k ər / NAY-kər, also / ˈ n æ k r ə / NAK-rə), [1] also known as mother-of-pearl, is an organic–inorganic composite material produced by some molluscs as an inner shell layer. It is also the material of which pearls are composed.
The original Japanese cultured pearls, known as akoya pearls, are produced by a species of small pearl oyster, Pinctada fucata martensii, which is no bigger than 6 to 8 cm (2.4 to 3.1 in) in size, hence akoya pearls larger than 10 mm in diameter are extremely rare and highly priced. Today, a hybrid mollusk is used in both Japan and China in the ...
There are two different color varieties: the Gold-lipped oyster and the Silver-lipped oyster. These bivalves are the largest pearl oysters in the world. They have a very strong inner shell layer composed of nacre, also known as "mother of pearl" and are important to the cultured pearl industry as they are cultivated to produce South Sea pearls.
Although these are a variety of cultured saltwater pearls, the amount of time that the pearls are cultured dramatically increases the depth of the nacre, and the likelihood of producing a baroque pearl. Most Tahitian pearl farm harvests, which, for example, produce more than 40 percent baroque and semi-baroque pearls.
John Robert Latendresse (July 26, 1925 in South Dakota – July 23, 2000) [1] was an American collector, known for being the "father of American cultured freshwater pearls". [2] He left home at 13, and lying about his age, joined the U.S. Marines at 15, serving 38 months in the South Pacific during World War II .
Cultured freshwater pearls are pearls that are farmed and created using freshwater mussels. These pearls are produced in Japan and the United States on a limited scale, but are now almost exclusively produced in China. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission requires that farmed freshwater pearls be referred to as "freshwater cultured pearls" in ...
Kokichi Mikimoto (Japanese: 御木本 幸吉, Hepburn: Mikimoto Kōkichi, 25 January 1858 – 21 September 1954) was a Japanese entrepreneur who is credited with creating the first cultured pearl and subsequently starting the cultured pearl industry with the establishment of his luxury pearl company Mikimoto. [1] [2]