by Tim Harry

Created on: July 28, 2009   Last Updated: March 17, 2010

All pearls are not the same. Jewellers will make use of natural pearls, cultured pearls and artificial pearls, although in truth artificial pearls are anything but a pearl. Artificial pearls are most likely to be made from plastic and are therefore generally thought to be worthless, although they may look good set in a piece of jewellery. Natural and cultured pearls though are valuable gemstones, and are highly sought after.

Natural and cultured pearls are formed in the same way. When a small organic item finds its way into the mantle of bivalve or clam mollusk, the mollusk as a precaution starts to release a nacreous substance to seal in the organic irritant and prevent harm coming to itself. Layers of nacre are then built up around the irritant, and so a spherical pearl is formed. The build up of nacre though is not a quick process and a good sized pearl will only form after a couple of years. The difference between natural and cultured pearls is nothing more than the fact that cultured pearls are induced by human hands placing an irritant in the mantle.

Prior to the later part of the nineteenth century all pearls were natural ones, and as a result hundreds of mollusks had to be opened and killed to find a single pearl. A highly speculative industry each pearl found could command a small fortune as it was turned into a piece of jewellery for the wealthy. The Japanese though found away to cultivate pearls and after a few years of development there were suddenly a lot more pearls available on the market. The price of pearls dropped from the small fortune to a decent sum. The fact is that cultivating or farming is still an expensive business and each pearl still requires a couple of years of work to form, and even then a pearl not form. There is though a lot more certainty about the number of pearls that are likely to be available for the jewellery industry.

Most cultured pearls now go into pieces of jewellery, and any natural pearls discovered are more likely to be sold to pearl collectors. Telling the difference though between natural and cultured pearls does required an x-ray of the pearl to discover the initial irritant, although even this is not definitive, although it was prevent imitation pearls being passed off as real ones.

Despite being farmed cultured pearls are not uniform, and there are different subtypes, including freshwater and saltwater cultivated pearls. Saltwater pearls include the likes of South Sea Pearls and Black Tahitian Pearls This means that sizes vary, as does the colour of the pearl and scarcity also impacts on prices. The South Sea Pearls often achieve the highest prices for cultivated pearls because of their rarity.

The fact that cultured pearls are real pearls does mean that care does need to be taken in order that they maintain their value and lustre. Cleaning of cultured pearls should be done with warm soapy water, no chemical cleaning agents should come anywhere near the valuable pearl.

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