The Mystique of Pearls

The mystery of the origin of pearls is at the center of their mystique.

The Chinese produced little pearl Buddhas by sliding figurines into freshwater mussels between the body and the shell in the 12th centrury making it the first known example of pearl culturing.

This technology was slow to make it out of China, and although it's a relatively simple process, it baffled people for at least hundreds of years.

At the end of the 19th century a technique for culturing pearls was invented in Japan, and the natural process could be duplicated.

This discovery was made by Kokichi Mikimoto,the son of a noodle shop owner. It took hims twenty years of research and many disappointments, but at last he founded Japan's cultured pearl industry.

Mikimoto's dream was was to make a round pearl, and he knew if he could make round pearls on demand, the world would buy them. Trying every conceivable product that he could make into a sphere to push into an oyster to see if he could induce it to coat it and make a pearl -- soap, wood, metal, glass -- it took years. Finally found the perfect - a sphere made out of a freshwater mussel shell that came from the United States.

In this procedure called nucleation, mantle tissue from another oyster induces the formation of a pearl sack around the irritant bead. That pearl sack then secretes nacre, and, over a period of time, produces a cultured pearl.

In addition he invented a system for farming oysters. Divers gathered wild akoya oysters, which thrived in the coastal waters of Japan. Once nucleated, the oysters were caged and suspended from rafts and left to grow for four years, to produce a thick coating of nacre.

Mikimoto was a brilliant business man and promoter as well as an innovator. He worked constantly to foster acceptance of his cultured pearls as true gems.

He work resulted in the word "cultured pearl" becoming accepted, legal and satisfactory throughout the world.

Mikimoto brought pearls to the masses, offering them at various prices, and changed the face of pearls, in terms of jewelry.