Tagged with 'Saltwater pearls'

The most exotic and original of pearls are farmed in the lagoons of five archipelagos of atolls and islands, mainly in French Polynesia.

 

Also known as ‘black pearls’, Tahitian pearls are produced in many mysterious colours such as silver, grey, pistachio, peacock and aubergine. Combined with classic round and baroque shapes, these colourful pearls have become highly fashionable and sought after in recent years.

 

Tahitian pearls are cultured in the large black lipped oyster Pinctada margaritifera cumingii. Unlike most pearl-producing molluscs which are grown in a hatchery to adulthood, larvae of the Pinctada margaritifera cumingii are often collected in the wild.

 

Tahitian pearls are regularly grown between 8 and 18mm in diameter, becoming more valuable with increasing lustre and size. To guarantee their exceptional quality, all Tahitian pearls are graded using X-ray technology to confirm each pearl has a minimum of 0.8mm of nacre before they are accepted for export.

 

Although Tahitian pearls can be perfectly round, their odd shapes and circles can also contribute to their mystery. In Imperial China, the Tahitian black pearl was regarded as a symbol of wisdom guarded between the teeth of a dragon.

 

Today, at Winterson we are proud to offer a more simple way to wear these exceptional pearls, with a beautiful selection of Tahitian pearl necklaces, pendants, rings, bracelets and Tahitian pearl earrings.

The iconic Akoya pearl is probably the most well known type of pearl and is prized for the quality of its nacre and lustre and for its near perfect round shape.

Since the first successful attempts to culture an Akoya pearl over a century ago, Akoya pearls are considered to be one of the most dazzling types of pearls available.

These saltwater pearls are cultured in the Pinctada fucata oyster, which is historically farmed in Japanese coastal waters. Other regions that are known for culturing Akoya pearls include China and Vietnam.

The oyster itself is small in comparison to other species and typically produces just one pearl of between 3mm and 10mm in diameter in each individual oyster.

Seed pearls are tiny pearls smaller than 3mm that are also produced in this oyster as a by-product of pearl culturing. These tiny gems give a delicate finish to jewellery as seen the Beau Seed Pearl and Diamond Ring by designer Alice Cicolini below.

Due to increasing levels of water pollution, Akoya pearls larger than 9.5mm of good quality are rarely cultured today and command increasingly high values compared to pearls that are more than 0.5mm smaller in diameter.

The proportion of round pearls produced by the Akoya oyster is relatively high and their near perfect shape has been an emblem of their quality together with their characteristic white colour.

Although at first glance, Akoya pearls may appear white, they often have overtones of pink, cream, silver and blue. Occasionally the pearls may have a rich cream to golden colour such those in the golden Akoya pearl necklace below.

The classic pink overtone is usually as a result of a traditional dye treatment by Japanese farmers called 'pinking'. Akoya pearls never come in dark hues that are typical of Tahitian pearls and black Akoya pearls are always the result of colour treatments.

Their size, lustre and colour mean that Akoya pearls are very well suited to making classic designs of Akoya pearl necklaces, bracelets, pendants, rings and Akoya pearl earrings.

A jewellery box staple is the Akoya pearl jewellery set, worn as every day attire, a wedding or an evening occasion.

Reinventing itself, the beloved Akoya pearl is also favored by designers in contemporary designs such as this Tsavorite Garnet and Akoya pearl pendant by designer Sophie Breitmeyer, where the classic round qualities of the lustrous pearl is contrasted with the more colourful modern gemstone.

If you would like to learn more about pearls, and what you should look for, read our Buying Pearls guide here.

Following the invention of the cultured pearl, a revolution began to take place in the world of pearls. Pearl diving and over-fishing in the late 19th century had driven prices of natural pearls soaring.

The advent of techniques for culturing pearls in saltwater oysters brought these fabulous gems within the reach of many, without depleting further the world’s natural mollusc beds. The method used for the creation of a cultured pearl is still widely used today.

A small round bead of shell material from a mussel and a piece of nacre-producing tissue from another oyster is inserted into a saltwater member of the Pintadine shellfish family. This highly skilled procedure is called a graft.

The nacre-producing tissue forms a small pearl sac around the bead and then gets to work covering the irritant with layers of nacre. Once the process has started, the pearl farmer has little control over of the final size, shape and colour of the pearl produced.

Once grafted less than 5% of these Pintadine shellfish, commonly referred to as oysters, go on to produce the best quality cultured pearls. Each pearl is unique and individual.

Today these grafting techniques are used in countries such as Japan, Indonesia and Australia to produce a wide variety of cultured pearls in both saltwater and freshwater molluscs.

This amazing diversity has inspired new directions of pearl jewellery and fashion beyond the classic white pearl necklace.

The next articles in this series will look in turn at the many different types of cultured pearl, in particular Freshwater, Akoya, Tahitian and South Sea pearls.

In 1917 enthusiastic New-Yorkers gawped at a double string necklace of natural pearls valued at $1 million, and said to be the finest in the Western world, that were being exhibited by jeweller Pierre Cartier.

A natural pearl is a pearl that has been formed entirely accidentally and with no intervention from humans at all.

Falling in love with the necklace, entrepreneurial Maisie Plant offered Cartier a swap of her 52nd Street and Fifth Avenue townhouse for the item. For an additional $100 in cash, Cartier bought the landmark building that it still occupies today.

Two years later, Kokichi Mikimoto, an innovative entrepreneur from Japan that was widely credited with developing a patented method for producing the cultured pearl, launched his products onto the London market at a 25% discount to the price of natural pearls.

By the time Mrs Plant died in 1956 the Cartier necklace of pearls was auctioned off for just $150,000 as cheaper cultured pearls emerged and prices of natural pearls fell. In recent times, however, natural pearls have seen a resurgence of desirability, with the famed Baroda Pearls, a double strand of 68 natural pearls, being sold at auction at Christies in 2007 for a record $7.1 million.

All the pearls that Winterson sells are cultured pearls. We take very great care in selecting the best available for use in our jewellery.

A natural pearl might start with an itch, although most pearl experts now agree that the 'grain of sand' is nor more than a myth.

When a small seed of material such as a parasite becomes trapped within an oyster or mussel's shell, nature gets to work. The shellfish slowly deposits layers of organic material called nacre around the source of its irritation.

Nacre is made from two forms of calcium carbonate called Aragonite and Calcite, which are found in the interior lining of shellfish that is often called ‘mother-of-pearl’. These are linked together by a little organic protein called Conchiolin, which is identical to that found in human hair and fingernails. Together these substances form the nacre.

Over time, layering of this nacre by the shellfish forms a smooth surface around the foreign material slowly transforming it into a beautiful pearl, unique in its shape, size and colour. The difference from one pearl to another lies in the shape and placement of crystals of Aragonite and Calcite that are being held in place by Conchiolin.

In our next articles we shall look at the differences between natural and cultured pearls.