WHAT MAKES A PEARL VALUABLE?
Rex Burress
What is a pearl? The excess white snow in the Sierra made me think of white pearls this March.
You can go into a jewelry store and see strand after strand of white beads called pearls, or pearls to hang from the ears, without any idea of their origin, or their authenticity.
A natural pearl is a hard glistening object produced in the soft mantle of a living, shelled mollusk, and is very rare. Composed of calcium carbonate, aragonite, and calcite laid down in concentric layers when an irritation occurs in some mollusks, a soft glow of lovely colors develop. The purpose of producing a peril by a wild mollusk's limey secretions is a defensive move to block invasion of a dangerous virus by piling layers of minerals around its entrance.
The organic gem occurrence is a byproduct usable mostly for the fancy of man. The colored pearl creation is of no practical use to the mollusk. Most organic gems are a byproduct of the intended purpose. Natural pearls are sold individually for up to 1,500 dollars each for a good one.
Another example of organic secretions considered beautiful is the sticky rosin that pine trees exude when injuries scrape a branch, or beetles try to drill through the bark. Golden Goo plugs the passage, and if the resin hangs around a few million years, it becomes the gem stone Amber.
You can also be advised not to “cast pearls before the swine,” an admonition not to display your best work where it is apt to be scorned, misplaced, or damaged.
A price is set on these soft gems, dictated by the desires of those who value them. We know a chicken will walk over nuggets of gold to reach kernels of corn, just as they would probably scorn diamonds and pearls, too! “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” “Value is in the mind of the buyer.”
There was a time in my Missouri boyhood that my enterprising Cousin Al sought to find pearls in the numerous mussel bivalves down in the creek. He sat up business, sloshed in the mud to gather several buckets of live shells, built a bench for dissection, and soon had pans of mussel bodies fleeced for pearls, but nary a single one. “Natural pearls are rare!” Al had several set-backs in the nature harvest business, including a plan to collect snapping turtle eggs to hatch and sell!
The pearl business is centered mostly around farm-raised, cultured pearls that are less expensive but essentially made in the same process, except the method of growth in a cultured pearl produces fewer layers than in wild mollusks, a difference that can be detected through x-ray or microscope. It takes two to four years to grow a cultured pearl, a practice that started in Akoya, Japan in 1916, but pearl value was generated long ago, especially in pirate times.
Most pearls come from marine pearl oysters of family Pteridae, but some imitation pearls are made of the iridescent 'mother of pearl' that line the inner shell of various species including abalone. Wild pearl recovery from inland endangered river mussels in Great Britain was banned in 1998.
Once at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, an enterprise was selling salt water pearl oysters for five dollars. “Find your own pearl,” right there if you wished. Not many found a pearl in the mucky mantle, and even if they did, chances of it being round as expected, are slim, as most wild pearls are odd-shaped. If you find your pearl, don't expose it to vinegar; the acid will dissolve the calcareous treasure!
“As a pearl is formed and its layers grow, a rich iridescence begins to glow. The oyster has taken what was at first an irritation and intrusion and uses it to enrich its value.”--Susan Young
“An oyster who was not injured, will never produce pearls, because the pearl is a healed wound.”
“In diving to the bottom of pleasure we bring up more gravel than pearls.” --De Balzac