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Pearls are made of many layers of nacre, a combination of
the mineral calcium carbonate and the protein conchiolin,
which form in the shells of bi-valve mollusks found in salt
and fresh water. These mollusks are found around the world
from the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia to
the Gulfs of Mexico, Panama and Venezuela.
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Black-Lipped Pearl Oyster ‘ Pinctada Margaritifera’
Harvested since millennia, the black-lipped oyster, covering
the widest geographical area of any known species, was the
preferred color of Pearl of Indian and Persian monarchs. However,
despite this oyster's name the nacre is rarely pure black,
instead the colors range from gray to green with blue or rose
overtones. Pearls produced by Pacific black-lipped oysters
are the most sought after in today’s gem and jewelry industry.
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Silver-Lipped Pearl Oyster ‘ Pinctada Maxima’
Sometimes referred to as the gold-lipped oyster, these giants
have been harvested for their Pearl and Mother Of Pearl for
more than a hundred years in the South Pacific. They were first
cultured for Pearls in the late 1800s but only became widely
available in the late 19th Century. Today, the silver or white
nacre produced by this oyster is the mainstay of the Australian,
Japanese and Philippine cultured Pearl industries.
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Ayoka Pearl Oyster ‘ Pinctada
Fucata’
Japan is famous for its Ayoka Pearl producing oysters, but
this has only been the case since the 1920s. Before this time
Japanese divers placed little value on Pearls, discarding
them and keeping the Mother Of Pearl, which was used as decorative
inlay in jewelry and household ornamentation. By the 1950s,
with new culturing techniques, Akoya Pearl had won widespread
popularity and is now exported worldwide.
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Ceylon Pearl Oyster ‘ Pinctada Radiata’
From the time of antiquity up to the 1920s the Red Sea and the
Persian Gulf supplied the world's demand for Pearl and Mother Of Pearl.
The majority of these Pearls came from the Ceylon oyster, known
as ‘Bil-bil’ by the fishermen of the Red Sea. The large demand
almost drove this particular species to extinction but remarkably
this oyster has endured the ravages of time and new techniques
in cultivation have seen numbers increase.
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Atlantic Pearl Oyster ‘ Pinctada
Imbricata’
Before leaving Spain Christopher Columbus was told by the
Queen that beside gold and silver, Pearl was the treasure
that the Spanish monarchy desired the most. When Columbus
landed on the Venezuelan coast in 1498, the royal request
was answered on the islands of Margarita and Cubagua. For
one hundred years, the fruits of millions of Atlantic oysters
from the region were shipped to Europe to satisfy the European
monarchy’s desire for Pearl jewelry.
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La Paz Pearl Oyster ‘ Pinctada
Mazatlanica’
Before the discovery of the Pacific’s black-lipped oyster,
the only other Pearl that came close to the beautiful colors
of the oysters of Polynesia came from the La Paz oysters in
the waters of Panama and California. At one time La Paz oysters,
preferring open oceanic conditions, were near extinction but
recent culturing ventures in the Gulf of California are replenishing
numbers and seeing a return of La Paz black Pearl to the world
market.
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Abalone Pearl Oysters ‘Haliotis’
Used in trade for thousands of years Abalone oysters are found
in abundance around the world. As well as being produced for
their meat, they are an excellent source of highly iridescent Pearl and Mother Of Pearl, ranging in beautiful colors from
turquoise, green, cream and rose.
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Green Abalone ‘ Haliotis Fulgens’
Green Abalone thrives in the cold and rocky waters in the Gulf
of California. They are often encrusted with small clams that
adhere to their surface whose presence gives rise to the creation
of blister Pearls within the Abalone. Blister Pearls are formed
when the clams bore into the shell from the outside, the Abalone responds in defense to the intrusion by secreting layers of
nacre, which coat the foreign body on the inside of the shell
eventually solidifying forming natural blister Pearls.
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Mabe Pearl Oyster ‘ Pteria Penguin’
and ‘Pteria Sterna’
These two species of thin-shelled oysters are the
most common sources of Mabe blister Pearls. Mabe
Pearls are artificially induced or cultured, they
form when a mold is inserted between the oyster's shell, this causes the oyster to produce layers
of nacre which eventually cover the mold, the mould
is then cut from the shell. These oysters occur
naturally in the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and the
western Pacific.
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