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No good poem, however confessional is may be, is just a self-expression. Who on earth would claim that the pearl expresses the oyster?" Robert Cecil Day LewisCultured pearls were not accepted immediately; it took several decades before consumers and the industry began accept this new kind of pearl as legitimate. A cultured pearl is a pearl created by a pearl farmer under controlled conditions, and therefore “milled”, but that does not equate to manufactured. Cultured pearls are not “fake” or even “faux”. While cows in the wild give milk, domesticated cows raised on farms produce real milk too. Now cultured pearls have replaced natural pearls in prominence. Today pearlsare available and affordable to all.
In its natural environment a pearl is formed when some sort of small object, typically a parasite or piece of organic matter, becomes embedded in the tissue of an oyster or mollusk. In response, the mantle tissue of the mollusk secretes nacre. Chemically speaking, this is calcium carbonate and a fibrous protein called conchiolin. As the nacre builds up in layers, it surrounds the irritant and eventually forms a pearl. It is a myth that a grain of sand can cause a pearl to form, as nacre will not adhere to inorganic substances. Natural pearls are those pearls that are formed in nature, more or less by chance. Cultured pearls, by contrast, are those in which humans take a helping hand. By actually inserting a foreign object into the tissue of an oyster or mollusk, pearl farmers can induce the creation of a pearl. The same natural process of pearl creation takes place.
The thirst for pearls is not easily quenched. Modern-day cultured pearls are primarily the result of discoveries made in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Japanese researchers Mise and Nishikawa. Although some other cultures had long been able to artificially stimulate mollusks into producing a type of pearl, the pearls produced in this way were only “blister” and “mabe“, rather than actual round pearls. What Mise and Nishikawa discovered was a specific technique for inducing the re-creation of a round pearl within the gonad of an oyster. This process of “seeding” was nearly considered ungodly and tampering with the natural order of things. Luckily science won out. This technique was patented by Kokichi Mikimotoshortly thereafter, and the first harvest of rounds was produced in 1916.
This discovery revolutionized the pearl industry, because it allowed pearl farmers to reliably cultivate large numbers of high-quality harvested pearls. In contrast to natural pearls, which have widely varying shapes, sizes, and qualities, and which, are difficult to find. Cultured pearls could be "designed" from the start to be round and primarily flawless. The oysters could be monitored for up to two years until each pearl was fully formed, thus better ensuring the oysters health and survival of its species by farming. In addition, the pearls could be produced by the tens of thousands, thereby bringing their cost down to a point where pearls became accessible to large numbers of people around the world. Man now controlled the pearls; pearls no longer controlled the man.
In short, the development of cultured pearls took much of the chance, risk, and guesswork out of the pearl industry, allowing it to become stable and predictable, and fostering its rapid growth over the past 100 years.
While it may be nearly impossible for the average consumer to tell naturally cultivated from cultured pearls, they can be distinguished through the use of x-rays, which reveals the inner nucleus of the pearl. Another easy way to tell, today more than 99% of all pearls sold worldwide are cultured pearls.
Return soon for part three of four
