Is A Cultured Pearl Real
Note that real pearls come in two varieties.
Is a cultured pearl real. It s worth noting that almost all pearls on the market today are cultured. It s this rarity that gives them their high price tag not necessarily their beauty. You might have to open 10 000 oysters to find a single decent quality natural pearl. Cultured pearls are pearls that come from a mollusk whether saltwater or freshwater varieties.
Some variations in color nacre luster and shape may exist between cultured and natural pearls. And to deflate one of the most common pearl myths floating around cultured pearls are real pearls. The freshwater river mussel and the saltwater pearl oysters. Natural pearls tend to be rarer and more expensive than cultured pearls.
Depending on whether human assistance is involved or not this organic gem can either be cultured or natural. Cross section of a cultured and a natural pearl. With freshwater pearls technicians embed a small piece of mantle tissue into the mollusk to being the culturing process. Natural pearls formed without human intervention are extremely rare and are.
There are many varieties of cultured pearls including freshwater saltwater tahitian and south sea pearls. Firstly this profession is not only dangerous but almost. Cultured pearls can be farmed using two very different groups of bivalve mollusk. A real pearl is produced by pearl bearing oysters either in fresh or salt water.
There are numerous dangers of diving for pearls in the open waters. Cultured pearls are real pearls grown inside real oysters at pearl farms in japan australia indonesia china and many more locations. Natural wild pearls are typically found by shellfish harvesters purely by accident. A cultured pearl is a real pearl grown in a shellfish or mollusk.
To be clear freshwater and saltwater pearls are cultured pearls. These pearls are nucleated with either a small mother of pearl bead nucleus or a square 1mm piece of mantle tissue which irritates the mollusk into forming a pearl sac and then subsequently coating the seed with crystalline nacre layers eventually forming a pearl. These pearls are created the old fashioned way but with a little assistance from man. Cultured pearls are nurtured on pearl farms giving them pretty decent survival rates.
Development of a pearl. Safer than pearl diving. Saltwater pearls are formed when a small rounded piece of mother of pearl shell is inserted into the oyster and the layers of pearl form around the nucleus.