Pearls by Angela Carol

All The Pearls In The World

There are several types of pearls in the world.  There is the freshwater pearl, the Tahitian pearl, the south sea pearl, and the Akoya pearl.  Each of these pearls has their own unique beauty to them.  They are all considered pearls but what makes them vary would be the type of mollusk they are grown in and also the area of the world where they are found.

Let’s take a look at the Akoya pearl.  This pearl is the one that most people think about when they think about pearl necklaces.  These Akoya pearls are what usually are used when making a necklace of pearls.  The word akoya is actually the Japanese word for pearl and the Akoya pearl is mostly found in Japan well the most valued ones are anyway.  Japan has been the only area that could produce a 8mm Akoya pearl.  These pearls have the best color and shape from any other oyster in the area.  Akoya pearls are the most beautiful of all the types of pearls with a wonderful luster and shape but they tend to be smaller in size than the other types of pearls. An Akoya pearl will grow between 6mm to 7mm on average.  Anything over 10mm is extremely rare.

The south sea pearl is considered the “Rolls Royce” of pearls.  These pearls are grown in the countries of Mayanmar, Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, and Australia.  These pearls grow to a much larger size than the others.  The average size of a south sea pearl is 13mm, yet there have been many pearls produced that were from 9mm to 20mm.  The reason for this is simple.  The silver lip oyster that the pearl grows in is one of the larger oysters and the warm waters of the South Seas help to produce food for the oysters to eat.  These pearls can only be found in deep ocean waters and can not be grown in lagoons or ponds like other types of pearls.

The Tahitian pearl is the most exotic of the pearls.  These are commonly known as a black pearl or a Tahitian black pearl.  These pearls were marketed in the late 1970’s as black pearls and the name stuck.  The pearls are not actually black in color but they are very dark perals.  Some of the colors that they come in would be greens, blues, grays and reddish browns.  The peacock colored Tahitian pearl is one that is dark green-gray with rose colored overtones.  A higher grade of color for the black pearl would be aubergine(eggplant), a dark purple, and a pistachio or yellowish green colored pearl.  These types of pearls are very expensive and relatively rare.  The best way to describe the value would be to say that a strand of Tahitian black pearls would be ten to fifteen times more expensive than a strand of Akoya pearls.

The freshwater pearl is a pearl that is not as exotic as the other types of pearls. These pearls are obviously found in freshwater and they can be farmed easily.  These pearls are hardly ever found in a round shape and often come out of their oyster in many unique shapes.  China is credited with the original farming of freshwater pearls and today has taken the leading production from Japan.  These freshwater pearls are also grown in the United States. 

Pearls have always been an object of beauty and only the rich and powerful were able to obtain them.  These are still very valued and can get extremely expensive for a certain grade but they are available to most people today.  Pearl jewelry pieces give off a certain air of elegance to those who wear them.