If a woman can only have one piece of jewelry in her life, then it is really a pearl, the warm and delicate pearl sets off the woman’s elegant and gentle temperament to the fullest, I think no woman should refuse the charm of pearls, right? From royalty to female celebrities, they all like to wear pearls to important banquets, which shows that the importance and popularity of pearls in jewelry cannot be shaken!
Pearls are an ancient organic gemstone that is about 200 million years old and is produced by mollusks (oysters)! Mainly produced in pearl shellfish and mother-of-pearl mollusks, calcium carbonate-containing mineral beads produced for shellfish endocrine action are rich in variety and shape!
According to the origin and production environment, pearls are divided into several categories:
Natural pearl family genealogy
I made this “Natural Pearl Family Genealogy” diagram to facilitate everyone’s clear and intuitive understanding of pearl varieties and classifications. Extremely rare pure wild pearlsI will write a separate popular science article, this article focuses on 99% of pearl jewelry on the market: the variety and classification of cultured pearls.
One. Pearls of the sea
【Nanyang Jinzhu】: Nanyang refers to Southeast Asia, a concept centered on our China, the coastal areas south of Jiangsu and other places in the Ming and Qing dynasties are collectively called “Nanyang” including the Malay Archipelago, the Philippine Islands, the Indonesian Islands, and the coastal areas of the Indochina Peninsula, the Malay Peninsula and other places. The pearls produced in this sea area are of high quality, and the pearls produced by this unique condition are of high quality, and the South Sea Golden Pearl, South Sea White Pearl and Tahitian Black Pearl are all South Sea Sea Pearls! The biggest feature of Nanyang pearls is their large size, (10-20mm), very good pearl light, thick bead layer, scarce production, very precious and become the most popular variety in the world! In particular, Nanyang Golden Pearl is known as the “King of Pearls”!
The color of gold beads has several standards of light gold, medium gold and strong gold, and the price difference between different quality colors is very large!
The pearls produced on each island have different characteristics, such as the Philippine gold pearl and the Indonesian gold pearl, which are also South Sea gold pearls! Philippine gold pearls, known as the fighter in the gold pearls, rich color is the biggest feature insiders call it “perverted gold”, good quality gold beads color richness can even be comparable to the color of 999 gold, pearl as smooth as silk, thick beads, the price is very expensive! The color of Indonesia is slightly lighter, although the color is not so intense, and the bead layer is not so thick, but the bead skin is usually relatively clean and smooth, and the needle eye blemishes will be relatively less! The appearance is also very beautiful, and the price is cheaper than the Philippine gold pearl.
【Nanyang White Pearl】:(Australian White Pearl, Australian White Pearl) is the best variety of all natural white pearls! With a noble temperament! Pearlescent is the most appropriate way to describe the luxury and nobility of Australian white! Mother shell for white butterfly oyster, is the world’s largest pearl oyster, generally the size of Australian white is more than 10mm, the maximum can reach 20mm, the larger the size, the rarer, the more expensive the natural price! The mother is very squeamish and very picky about the growing environment and water quality, and only a small part of the northwest coast of Australia can achieve the growth conditions of Australian white.
Australian white pearls are divided into ordinary Australian white pearls – phoenix – Venus according to quality.
(ps: The following article will explain in detail, this article will not repeat much)
Tahitian Black Pearl: It is cultured from a precious black dish mussel (a rare mussel that only grows in natural, unpolluted Polynesian waters), which has different shades of gray with different colors, thus making the pearl even more different. In addition, the requirements of the breeding environment and the pearling process are very rigorous, for every 100 black saucer mussels that receive pearls, only 50 can successfully cultivate pearls, and only 5 of them are flawless, so each pearl is extremely precious.
Among them, the rarest and most precious of Tahitian black pearls is the green black pearl, commonly known as: malachite green! Very little production! Expensive! It’s hard to come by!
Two. Shallow sea pearls of saltwater pearls
【Japanese Akoya Pearl】:
Akoya pearls are produced in Japan, and the Japanese pronunciation is close to “Akoya”, which is one of the best in artificial cultured pearl technology in Japan and the world! Its surface has a layer of calcium crystals, this crystal is very rare resulting in a very bright surface, so everyone is called: “small bulb”, the biggest feature of akoya is: pink color, small body size (diameter in 3-8.5mm), pearlescent! Loved by many women, very popular in the market, with a fresh temperament, it does not have the luxurious and expensive sense of distance of Nanyang pearl, but has a delicate gentleness, very suitable for daily wear and commuting!
There is also a silvery-gray-blue variety in Akoya saltwater pearls called “True Duoma”
According to the quality level, it can be divided into: ordinary akoya pearl – flower pearl – tiannu pearl
(ps: The following article will be analyzed in depth, this article will not repeat it)
【Japanese Mapei Pearl】:
Mapei beads are different from ordinary pearls, they are semi-circular, also called Mabe beads and steamed bun beads. Usually the physical composition of saltwater pearls and Mapei pearls is the same, but the growth process is different, Mapei pearls are actually a kind of regenerated pearls, after collecting the cultured pearls, the semi-circular pearl nucleus is directly inserted on the inside of the Mapei shell, and the half-sided pearl nucleus is attached to the inner wall of the mother-of-pearl, and the nacre then wraps the outer pearl nucleus layer by layer to form a semicircle. Cultivating Mapei pearls is the last stage of mother-of-pearl life. Mapei beads are usually as small as 10mm in diameter and as large as 20, 21, 22mm or larger, and have shapes such as round, teardrop-shaped, oval, heart-shaped and special-shaped, and the colors are: white, pink, silver-gray-blue.
【China Guangxi Hepu Nanzhu】: The history can be traced back to the Han Dynasty, refers to Guangxi Hepu County under the jurisdiction of Beihai City, the pearls produced here are collectively called Nanzhu, the most famous of the South Pearl is: Beihai Jinxia pearl, after years of scientific cultivation and culture, Beihai pearl has a variety of characteristic pearls, mainly pure seawater cultured pearls and freshwater seawater mixed hybrid cultured pearls. It is worth mentioning that the famous Japanese akoya seawater pearl was actually discovered in Hepu County, Beihai, Guangxi, a hundred years ago.
Three. Freshwater cultured pearls are freshwater seedless pearls
[Freshwater seedless pearl]: Freshwater pearl refers to pearls produced in lakes, 95% of the world’s freshwater pearls are produced in China, pearl production areas are mainly concentrated in Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and other southern regions. Zhejiang Zhuji is known as the “hometown of China’s freshwater pearls” and has a professional pearl market that accounts for 75% of the world’s pearl trading volume.
Freshwater pearls are more colorful than saltwater pearls. In addition to white, flesh pink, light orange, lilac and intense purple are unique colors of freshwater pearls, and the cost performance is also very high. Freshwater pearls were also called “East Pearls” in ancient times
Because it is seedless, the quality of freshwater pearls is usually inferior to that of saltwater pearls, and the quality is uneven, so the price is relatively cheap, and the cosmetics produced from pearls and oral medicinal pearl powder we use are made of seedless pearls.
[Edison freshwater nucleated pearl]: is a freshwater nucleated pearl developed by a pearl company in Zhejiang,
Edison’s pearl culture technique can be said to be imitated
South Sea pearls, it is also implanted in mother-of-pearl small nuclear molds, and then let the mother oyster secrete nacre to wrap the nuclear mold layer by layer to grow into pearls.
爱迪生珍珠的颜色比较丰富，具有淡水珍珠的颜色种类：白色、肉粉色、紫色、橙色等多种天然形成的颜色。
总结爱迪生珍珠特点：形状圆、直径大、颜色丰富、皮质相对粗糙、表皮生长纹较多，价格不算太贵。
【Freshwater Akoya Nuclear Pearl】: Freshwater Akoya is a new technology in the past two years, and the quality of good Freshwater Akoya is comparable to saltwater pearls! Although the cultivation method is the same as the Edison pearl belongs to freshwater nucleated pearls, but there is still a difference, Edison pearl pearls are implanted into the mussel when the spinnaker mussel is young, and the seedless freshwater pearl is different, a mussel can only produce one Edison pearl. And “freshwater akoya” is after two years of Edison pearl growth, open the mussel body again, implant six pearl nuclei at the lateral mantle of the pearl mussel, this process has high technical difficulty, improper operation can easily lead to the death of the mother, improper implantation position of the pearl nucleus will also directly affect whether the secretion of nacre is uniform, affecting the quality of pearl growth after that. The advent of freshwater akoya still poses a big threat to Japanese seawater akoya, beautiful and cheap, but only a fraction of the price of seawater akoya.
Finally, there is a simple and clear picture to divide the pearl grade: judging the quality level of a pearl from the shape of the pearl – pearl – the degree of flaws
The article is a bit long, thank you for reading, and then I will take time to deeply analyze each variety of pearls and style trends, matching suggestions, so stay tuned!
