Today, natural pearls are extremely rare. Only 1 in about 10,000 wild oysters will yield a pearl and of those, only a small percentage achieve the size, shape and colour desirable to the jewellery industry.
How Much Are Real Pearls Worth? A traditional strand of white pearls can range from $100 (Freshwater pearl necklace) to $10,000 (Akoya pearl necklace). A strand of large, flawless South Sea pearls could even be valued as high as $100,000+ .
While any oyster — and clams and mussels — can produce pearls, some species of oysters are more likely to produce pearls, while others may be harvested primarily to serve as food.
“Finding a pearl in an edible oyster is very rare,” Matthew Gray, Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, told CNN via email. “Anecdotally, it's estimated to be something like 1/10,000, but I think this is being generous.”
There is no obvious sign that an oyster has a pearl inside. You have to open the shell to see if there's one inside. However, larger, older oysters are more likely to have pearls.
The remote Kimberley coastline in the North-West of Australia is the perfect location for growing South Sea Pearls. The area is home to huge tidal variations of up to 12 metres (the second largest tides in the world).
Some pearl “farmers” will remove pearls from an oyster without killing them, keeping them alive to endure repeated insertions of foreign materials to continue making pearls. It is estimated that around a third to half of them are kept while the rest are killed.
Today, natural pearls are extremely rare. Only 1 in about 10,000 wild oysters will yield a pearl and of those, only a small percentage achieve the size, shape and colour desirable to the jewellery industry.
Black Pearl Price Range:
Dyed Black Freshwater Pearls: $50 - $1000. Dyed Black Akoya Pearls: $100 - $2000.
The Largest Pearl Ever Found: Discovery
The biggest recorded natural pearl in the world is the Pearl of Puerto. This pearl is often known as the Pearl of Puerto Princesa. A Filipino fisherman discovered it in the sea off the Philippine Islands. It weighs 75 pounds and is 2.2 feet long and wide.
Because pearls naturally form in only one in 10,000 oysters and because the creation of a pearl can take up to three years, pearl-makers have devised a process called “culturing,” or cultivating, that allows them to exploit oysters faster and cheaper.
The process of producing a pearl can range from 6 months to several years. Even before this, it takes about 3 years for the mollusk to reach a mature age in order to produce a pearl. A mollusk is only able to begin the pearl making process naturally or with the help of humans when it reaches this mature age.
Some oysters can produce two to three pearls over the course of their lifetime, but only an oyster with pearls of good quality will repeat the process of producing a pearl.
Naturally colored blue pearls are the rarest pearl colors in the world (with one or two exceptions, which we will get to below). The color has existed in pearls for decades, but only recently have naturally colored blue pearls gained popularity in the modern pearl jewelry markets.
The lip determines the pearl color. While the white pearls are also priced by jewelers, the gold pearl variety is the most coveted color. The gold South sea pearl's color can range from creamy white to deep gold, and the darker the color, the more expensive it becomes.
The Australian South Sea Pearls are the Jewels of the Ocean and are the rarest and most highly prized pearls in the world. They are known as the Queen of Pearls.
As white pearls are by far the most common, they are generally considered less expensive than black pearls. However, their value is actually determined by how and where they are produced, their shape and size, and their lustre.
1. Pink Pearls: While dyed pink pearls are easily available, natural pink pearls are most certainly not. This is because they are created by the queen conch, which is an endangered large marine sea snail. Also, these pearls are not cultured, which makes them extremely scarce.
Some of the world's most expensive pearls are so notoriously difficult to successfully produce and harvest that they are 'rarer than gold'.
While natural pearls may be floating around within some salt-water oysters somewhere in middle of the ocean, these ocean diamonds are retrieved from 400 feet below sea level. It might be quite the undertaking, and an expensive one at that, but the rewards speak for themselves.
Only one in 10,000 oysters will produce a Natural Pearl and of those only one in a million will be gem quality. Only about half of 1 percent of the world's pearls are Natural.
Yes, in most locations they kill the mollusk after it produces a pearl.
Pearls are made by marine oysters and freshwater mussels as a natural defence against an irritant such as a parasite entering their shell or damage to their fragile body. The oyster or mussel slowly secretes layers of aragonite and conchiolin, materials that also make up its shell.
While true oysters can make pearls, they are typically not gem quality, and pearl oysters tend to live deep in the ocean out of fishing range, according to Food Republic. According to ThoughtCo, pearls are formed when an irritating substance, such as a grain of sand, gets lodged in an oyster's shell and irritates it.
The Australian pearl producing oyster is named Pinctada Maxima and is native to Far North Queensland, North Western Australia and The Northern Territory.