April 17th, 2009 Tahitian pearls are black, and are grown by the black-lipped oyster. Their natural dark colors make these pearls very unique and valuable.
Most “black” Tahitian pearls are not actually black. They come with silvery metallic or colorful overtones. Truly black pearls are extremely rare, and of the colored overtones, the peacock-green variety is the most valuable.
Tahitian [...]
April 17th, 2009 Saltwater pearls from the Akoya oyster (Pinctada fucata martensii), which are usually cultured. These pearls are typically roundish, and their natural body colors normally range from light pink, to white, to yellowish. The chapters on pearl quality in this book focus on Akoya pearls.
Even though they are often called Japanese pearls, they can also be [...]
April 17th, 2009 Pearls form within oysters, which live in the sea, and also within freshwater mollusks. Traditionally, most pearls were gathered from saltwater-dwelling oysters in the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and the coastal waters of India and Japan, although China has harvested freshwater pearls for many centuries.
Saltwater pearls tend to be more lustrous than their freshwater [...]
April 17th, 2009 The Japanese, at Lake Biwa, are credited with being the first to succeed in cultivating freshwater pearls on a commercial basis, although freshwater pearls in the shape of Buddha had been cultured in China as far back as the thirteenth century. The technical roots of cultivating freshwater pearls are attributed to Masayo Fujita, the “father [...]
April 9th, 2009 some people use the term “black pearl” to refer to any dark colored pearl, dyed or natural color. black pearls are not necessarily black. more often than not they rang from a light to very dark gray, but they may also look green, pink lavender, blue or brown. it is the oyster source, not color, [...]