A Fresh Look at Freshwater Pearl Jewelry

If, when you picture freshwater pearls, lumpy linen-colored rice shapes come to mind, it's time to update your thinking. Today's freshwater pearls have come a long way from their humble beginnings, and the best specimens now rival the beauty of their saltwater cousins - the akoya pearl, the Tahitian pearl and the South Sea pearl. When shopping for pearl jewelry, don't neglect to consider freshwater cultured pearl jewelry. You will be pleasantly surprised by the quality, and even happier with the price.

Freshwater cultured pearls are pearls that are grown in mollusks that live in freshwater ponds, lakes and rivers rather than in the ocean. Freshwater pearls are produced in mussels; saltwater pearls are produced in oysters. 'Natural' pearls are those that grow without any human intervention. The term 'cultured' does not mean that pearls are imitation, rather it means that the pearl growth process was deliberately started by man. Both natural and cultured pearls are identical in makeup - they're comprised of nacre, the same substance that mother-of-pearl is made of. Due to overfishing, natural pearls are very rare. Most pearls sold today are cultured.

Freshwater pearls are produced in Japan, the United States and China, but Chinese freshwater pearls are by far the most abundant. When the Chinese made freshwater pearls widely available in the 1970s, the crop consisted mainly the rice-shaped gems many people still associate with freshwater cultured pearl jewelry. But surprisingly, the 1970s weren't the start of pearl culturing in China. In fact, the Chinese were culturing pearls back in the thirteenth century!

According to the Gemological Institute of America, ancient Chinese pearl farmers used several types of nuclei, or starter beads, to begin the pearl growing process. These included spheres of mother-of-pearl, molten lead or small pieces of metal. Buddha figures were also a popular shape. These early pearl farmers would carefully pry open the mussel, insert the foreign object, return the animal to the water and wait for the mussel to do its work. Then the blister pearl, a pearl that is grown against the animal¡¯s shell and therefore flat on one side, was retrieved and cut and shaped into jewelry.

For much of modern times, China was relatively quiet in the pearl culturing industry. Then, in the 1970s, the country stunned the industry by flooding the pearl market with massive amounts of low quality, inexpensive freshwater cultured pearls. About two percent of the crop was of a finer quality and better shape. Gradually, Chinese pearl farmers learned how to produce more and more of this better quality freshwater cultured pearl by increasing the size, improving the shape and improving the luster, or surface sheen, of the gems. Because Chinese freshwater cultured pearls have a fairly long growth period¡ªup to six years¡ªresults of improved techniques can take a while before they're apparent. Yet according to GIA, the quality of Chinese freshwater cultured pearls has been steadily and slowly improving. Meanwhile, pollution and overcrowding have waged war on the Japanese akoya pearl market, giving pearl experts and pearl jewelry lovers another reason to take a closer look at finer quality Chinese freshwater cultured pearls.

Interestingly, nearly all saltwater cultured pearls are implanted with mother-of-pearl beads made from ground American mussel shells. Therefore, even saltwater pearls are partly freshwater!

Freshwater cultured pearls are produced in mussels belonging to the family Unionidae. A great deal of freshwater pearls are nucleated, or implanted, with mantle tissue only, which is taken from a donor mussel. Because they do not contain a starter "bead," tissue-nucleated freshwater pearls are almost 100% nacre. This gives them a beautiful luster and a durable surface that won't easily flake or peel to reveal the inner bead. By contrast, pearls that are bead-nucleated and prematurely harvested often have only a thin coating of nacre that is prone to flaking and chipping. Unfortunately, unlike other gemstones, pearls cannot be polished back to perfection once they're destroyed.

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