Know your pearls

Some like to say,when in doubt,wear your pearls! The marketplace is active with so many pearl varieties and each variety singing confusing prices that people mostly give up and buy uninformed.

Some like to say,when in doubt,wear your pearls! The marketplace is active with so many pearl varieties and each variety singing confusing prices that people mostly give up and buy uninformed. Broadly,peals may be classified as natural pearls,cultured pearls,pearls by colour tone and pearl imitations.

Natural pearl is an organic gem and is created without any human intervention. When a mollusk is invaded by a foreign entity that the animal cant expel,a process known as encystations entombs the offending particle in successive,concentric layers of nacre to shield the inner casing. As layer upon layer of the lustrous matter called nacre coats the irritant,a pearl is created. This procedure of building a solid pearl may take up to 7-8 years. The most valuable pearls are perfectly symmetrical,relatively large and lustrous.

Before the advent of the 20th century,pearl hunting was the most common way of procuring pearls from sea and river beds. To obtain four to five natural round pearls,almost a ton of oysters had to be opened. This rarity makes them prized possessions commanding top price. Ancient Sumerians gathered pearl oysters along the Persian Gulf some 4,000 years ago. Natural pearls vary from each other in texture,overall look,colour tone and prices depending upon the type of mollusk and the water in which it resides.

Pearls may vary in colour from white to ones with a hint of colour like pink,brown and black. Primarily,pearls from the sea are most sought after. There are many kinds of natural pearls. Baroque pearls have irregular shapes. Biwa pearls are irregular but have gorgeous lustre and come from Lake Biwa in Japan. Blister pearls grow attached to the inside of a shell. Fresh water pearls are most commonly identified as the ones formed in fresh water mollusks and resemble puffed rice. Seed pearls are the tiny ones normally used in Victorian era jewelry and Indian jadau jewelry. Present day natural pearls procurement is confined to the seas off Bahrain and Australian Indian Ocean. A natural pearl when x-rayed shows a series of concentric rings without any complex central cavity. One may contact gem testing laboratories like the GIA,AGTA and HIRCO-INDIA.

(The writer is a city-based researcher specialising in jewellery art and can be contacted at sameeraahaan02@ gmail.com)

Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram

Tags:
jewellery