When you think of freshwater pearls, small size and lopsided shapes may come to mind.
That was pretty much the case ten years ago. For many years, freshwater pearl farms only produced low
quality rice pearls, while saltwater pearls, were more round and of better quality. The past ten years has
seen many improvements in the cultivation and processing techniques of freshwater pearls.
The least expensive cultured pearl product on
the market today rivals the quality of the most expensive natural pearls ever found.
This price-value is obvious to consumers as they buy Chinese freshwater
bargains. Pearls from freshwater mussels lie at the center of the liveliest activity in pearling today.
In the 1990s, China surprised the market with freshwater pearls that were of much higher quality.
The ever-inferior freshwater pearls are now steadily becoming a strong opponent of their saltwater
counterparts.
Freshwater Cultured Pearls, are farmed in freshwater and grown in mussels.
The irritants and the oysters used in making freshwater pearls are smaller than saltwater pearls.
Freshwater pearls cultivating technique usually produce twenty or more pearls in one oyster.
Saltwater Cultured Pearls, are farmed in saltwater, and grown in oysters.
Only one pearl is grown per oyster. This makes salt-water pearls more
expensive than freshwater pearls.
Countries known as producer of saltwater pearl are Burma, Indonesia, Thailand,
and Philippines in South East Asia; Australia and Tahiti in South Pacific, especially in Tahiti,
you'll find the beautiful black pearls.
The Differences.
The thickness of the nacre coating
Cultured saltwater pearls start with a shell nucleus that is seeded into the oyster.
The oysters, over time, secrete a calcium (nacre), which covers this nucleus.
- The nacre coating of Japanese Akoya pearls about a half-millimeter.
- The nacre coating of Tahitian pearls-about 2 to 3 millimeters.
- South Sea pearls develop the thickest-from 2 to 6 millimeters.
Freshwater pearls are all pearl -- this is a big selling point for freshwater pearls.
Because there is no hard nucleus inserted in freshwater pearls, freshwater pearls are almost all nacre.
Only South Sea pearls have a nacre coating as thick as that of freshwater pearls.
However, for South Sea pearls to have the same thickness nacre coating of a 10mm
freshwater pearl a South Sea pearl should be 18mm in size. You will have to spend
a small fortune to have it. It only costs a small fraction of that money to buy a
10mm, top quality freshwater pearl.
Colors
Freshwater pearls have a special
attraction since they come in a wide range of colors much more variety than
seawater pearls. By adding very small quantities of metals to the water on a
pearl farm, the colors of freshwater pearls can be very different; many of
these colors are not found in saltwater pearls.
Shapes
Freshwater pearls can be found
in almost any shape that you can imagine: round, drop, rice, button, oval, semi-round,
circle or ringed, baroque and semi-baroque. Because of its popularity, the round shape
is usually the most expensive, but as always, personal preference dictates the shape
each customer will find most beautiful. In fact, baroque shapes, like the variety of
colors, offers beaders more scope, although farmers aim for smooth round cultured pearls.
Cultivation periods
South Sea pearls and Tahitian pearls take 2 to 3 years to form. Japanese Akoya pearls take
a shorter period, less than 2 years. The cultivation period for Chinese freshwater pearls
in the 1980s was 18 to 24 months. This short time resulted in small sizes and low quality.
Over the past 10 years, Chinese pearl farms have changed their way of cultivating pearls
and let their mussels stay in the water for much a longer time. Freshwater pearls take from at
least 3 years to as long as 5 to 6 years before they are ready for harvest. Longer
cultivation period lead to freshwater pearls that are much bigger in size and higher in quality
Comparable Sizes
New farming techniques and longer cultivation periods have increased the size of
freshwater pearls. Large freshwater pearls in the range of 9 to 16 mm are now more
common, equivalent to South Sea pearls in size yet more aggressively priced.
Quality
The shapes, surface and luster of new freshwater pearls have already
surpassed the original Biwa quality. As testimony to China's achievement,
good freshwater pearls are now round enough, clean and lustrous enough to
pass as Japanese Akoya and South Sea pearls.
Final Word (Bottom Line)
Freshwater pearl farmers have improved their cultivation methods and
processing techniques. Creating a pearl that is much less expensive, yet
its quality rivals that of the more expensive saltwater pearls.
Clearly, the image of freshwater pearls is lower than that of other pearls.
Low quality pearls occur to seawater pearls. However, the inflow to the
market of these low quality pearls is banned by the saltwater pearl industry,
preventing them from destroying the image of the seawater pearl.
Freshwater pearls have no such control. Medium and low quality products
flood the market each year, weakening the freshwater pearl's image.
To say that saltwater pearls are superior to freshwater pearls simply
by comparing the best quality seawater pearls on the market with the deluge
of low quality freshwater pearls on the market is not fair.
Each individual pearl's virtues determine its value more than the source
of the pearl. Freshwater pearls are not just "Rice Krispies" anymore.
It is a widespread hope among members of the freshwater pearl industry
that educating customers and promoting top-quality pearls will improve the image of freshwater pearl.
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