Clutches for Less

Posts Tagged ‘South Sea Pearls’

Go to any jewelry store and peruse their pearl collections and it’s easy to see how many different colors of pearls there are. You can find pearls in white, cream, pink, purple and black with overtones of green, brown and blue. While personal preference is the basis for deciding which color pearl is best for you, it’s important to understand why pearls are the colors they are.

Oysters secrete nacre to cover a nucleus in their tissue - this is what most pearls are made of. The thickness of the nacre is the first thing that determines the color of the pearl. The thicker the nacre, the richer the color of the pearl. The main factor that determines a pearl's color is the type and color of the mollusk that produced it. Different mollusks produced different colors of pearls for a variety of reasons.

Freshwater pearls are found in a wide variety of colors naturally. The colors are produced for many different reasons including environment, type of mussel and the location of the nucleus inserted into the tissue. Manganese is one element found only in freshwater mollusks and causes changes in the pearl’s color. The Manganese will darken freshwater pearls causing a silver-grey effect making a beautiful and unique colored gemstone.

Some pearls’ color, like that of the South Sea pearl, is based on the color of the oyster’s mantle tissue that it came from. The South Sea pearl is produced by the Pinctada maxima mollusk. This mollusk comes in two different types - the gold lip and the silver lip. The silver lip creates white, silver and rose colored pearls while the gold lip produces yellow, gold and champagne colored pearls. The gold colored South Sea pearls are very rare and possibly the most valuable

Tahitian pearls or black South Sea pearls have a rich, dark coloration. Tahitian pearls are produced by the Pinctada margaritifer mollusk. This mollusk is also known as the black lip oyster. The mantle of the black lip oyster is very dark which causes the pearls it produces to be black in color. Not only is the color of the mantle tissue a factor in what color the pearl will be but it also depends on the color of the donor tissue grafted into the oyster. Different donor tissues can cause the pearl to have lavender, green, blue and ‘peacock’ overtones. These pearls are coveted because of their luster and iridescence.

Even though cultured and natural pearls come in a wide variety of colors, pearls are sometimes dyed. A lot of times, freshwater and akoya pearls are dyed dark colors to give them the appearance of a Tahitian or South Sea pearl. The dyes are organic and don’t harm the stone but it is important to be aware of this when shopping for pearls. If the color of a pearl looks too beautiful to be true, it may be! You can spot a dyed pearl by looking down the drill hole with a magnifier. Even the color of Tahitian pearls can be tampered with. Sometimes heat is used to alter their color and achieve a chocolate color which has become very popular in the jewelry world.

Melo pearls are also called Vietnamese Orange pearls. They are a different kind of pearl altogether. They don’t come from oysters or other mollusks, the way other pearls do. They come from predatory sea snails that populate the coasts of Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Thailand. The process is the same as for normal pearls - a foreign substance is introduced to the inside of the gastropod shell and a pearl is formed over time.

The difference is that the pearl produced is non-nacreous. It is a natural calcareous concretion, which means that the chemical process that takes place inside the snail is different from the process that takes place inside an oyster for a traditional pearl. The result is a pearl without luster – the surface of the pearl is much like a piece of porcelain.

Though some clams produce non-nacreous pearls without luster, the thing that makes a Melo pearl unique is its color and its flame-like pattern. Because in most cases a pearl takes on color attributes of its shell host, the Melo pearls come out in varying shades of orange. They can range from dark orange to the palest shade of orange (almost white) and have an interesting flame – like design that occurs naturally. This can be caused by lamella, which occurs in thin layers over the surface of the pearl.

These types of pearls are very rare, about as rare as Tahitian pearls, (also known as Tahitian black pearls or sometimes just called black pearls) and current research shows that unlike the Tahitian pearls, Melo pearls have yet to be cultured successfully. In fact, some say that the color fades with time, leaving a non-lusterous orb.

Since so many people are keen to research and study these pearls, so enterprising fisherman are harvesting them and selling them to the highest bidder. Veteran fishermen in Burma say that the likelihood of finding a Melo pearl is one per one thousand Melo snail shells. Even though dealers and traders are keen to get their hands on one of these beauties now, the Melo pearls have traditionally been used practically. In fact, certain religious sects treasure the shell of the snail more than a pearl that would be found in it. The shells became horns used in religious ceremonies.

As for the Melo pearls, up until buyers had an interest in them, the people in these costal villages would create ashtrays and dishes out of the shells and would give the round Melo pearls to their children to play marbles with. As for the non-spherical pearls, they may have been used for other purposes, or they may have been tossed back into the sea.

While you might not be able to buy a Melo pearl necklace at this time, you can soothe your urge for a special and rare pearl by looking into Tahitian pearls, which come in stunning shades of black; or South Sea pearls, which come in warm gold colors.

There are so many different varieties of pearls out there in the world and it’s sometimes difficult to tell them apart. It starts with the basics; pearls are either freshwater or saltwater, obviously depending on where they are grown and harvested. The various types of pearls get broken down from there. Among the known types of pearls are Tahitian Pearls and Akoya Pearls.  Among the lesser known types of pearls are the South Sea, Cortez and Keshi pearls. They are all different and unique in their own ways.

The South Sea pearl is among the largest in the world with an average size of about 13mm. The actual oysters these pearls are harvested from are also massive in size. They can grow to be 12 inches in diameter and produce pearls anywhere from 9mm to 20mm in size. Unlike akoya oysters which can accept more than one nucleation, the South Sea pearl oyster can only accept one nucleation at a time.

There are a few reasons why South Sea pearls are so large compared to other pearls. The large size of the actual oyster is the first reason for the large pearl size. Because the oyster is so large, it allows for more room for the pearl to develop. Another reason for the large size is the size of the implanted bead. The bead that the oyster is implanted with is much larger than that of other cultured pearls. This large original bead implant causes the oyster to deposit nacre around the nucleus at a much quicker rate than other oysters. Environment is another reason why South Sea pearls get to be so large. They live in very warm, clean water filled with plankton which helps to speed up nacre production.

There are a few characteristics of South Sea pearls that make them so unique. Besides being a generally large stone, they have unusually thick nacre. Typically, an akoya pearl has a nacre of 0.35mm to 0.7mm while a South Sea pearl has nacre ranging from 2-6mm. This makes them very hard and much more durable than other pearls. South Sea pearls also have a unique satiny luster caused by the warm waters of their habitat. South Sea pearls also have a very beautiful array of colors like white, silver and gold that are rare in other pearls.

Another lesser known pearl is the Cortez pearl. One of Mexico's prized gemstones, Cortez pearls come fromt he warm waters of the Gulf of California. Cortez pearls come from two different species of oysters – the “Panamic Black-Lipped Oyster” and the “Rainbow-Lipped Oyster”. These oysters produce very unusual colors and a gorgeous iridescence unique to the Cortez pearl. It takes about 2 years to produce these beautiful pearls, but is definitely worth the wait.

Cortez pearls typically range in size from about 8mm to 14mm and have nacre about 0.8 millimeter to 2.3mm thick. Like the South Sea pearls, Cortez pearls are hard and more durable than their more classic counterparts. A unique feature of the Cortez pearl is its shape. Most Cortez pearls are irregular in shape, or Baroque. Cortez pearls can be round or near-round in shape but this is a very small percentage of any harvest. Color is another reason why these pearls are so loved. They have an intense rainbow-like opulence with colors ranging from cool whites to silver, bronze and black. The black Cortez pearls often have a “peacock” appearance with overtones of green, purple blue and gold.

Another of the lesser known pearls is the Keshi pearl. These pearls can be either freshwater or saltwater which is a rare characteristic. The way that Keshi pearls are created is an interesting process. When an oyster rejects and implanted nucleaus before the culturing process begins, a Keshi pearl is created. The pearl sacs eventually create a pearl without a nucleus. There is no nucleus to guide the growth and development of the Keshi pearl, so they are usually small and irregular in shape.

Keshi pearls, because of their origin, are 100% nacre. This causes the pearls to have a very high luster and come in a wide variety of colors. Many times, a Keshi pearl has a greater luster than the highest quality cultured pearls. When pearl farming began, Keshi pearls were abundant and created very unique pieces of jewelry. Today, Keshi pearls are much rarer because many pearl farms x-ray their oysters to determine if an oyster has rejected its implanted nucleus. One of the wonderful things about Keshi pearls however is their unpredictable shape. This irregular shape paired with a wide variety of colors from white to ivory, gold and black allows jewelers to create some truly unique pieces of jewelry.