Pearls

And now for something completely different! Consider this the first of Saur’s Holiday Shopping Tips for You and Your Loved Ones.

I love jewelry. If ever a girl loved jewelry, it would be me. I particularly love pearls, though I cannot give you any rational reasons why. Pearls are actually something that any self-respecting vegetarian should eschew and although I’m not a vegetarian any more, I do feel a twinge of guilt about this. Why? Well, let’s have a look at a passage on cultured pearls:

“Saltwater oysters are nucleated by opening the shell a mere 2-3 centimeters and making a minute incision to the gonad – the oyster's reproductive organ. The mother of pearl nucleus is inserted into this incision which is then followed with a very small piece of mantle tissue from a donor oyster. The mantle tissue is placed between the mother of pearl bead and the gonad with the side containing epithelial cells facing the nucleus. These epithelial cells are the catalyst of the pearl-sac. The pearl sac grows around the nucleus and begins to deposit nacre. This nacre layering is the beauty of the pearl.”

Now, would you call that humane? Heck, no! Right now, all the male readers have crossed their legs at the mention of what is done to the gonads. And think about how you have to destroy the oyster to get the pearl! Talk about adding insult to injury! Of course, you can’t really beat a great cup of oyster stew. Right? Wrong. Pearl-producing oysters aren't edible.

And get this:

“Saltwater oysters will only produce 1-2 pearls per typical nucleation. Akoya oysters can be nucleated with up to 5 beads, but the use of only 2 is most common. The Akoya oyster dies at harvest. South Sea and Tahitian oysters accept only one nucleus at a time, but as they do not die at harvest they may be nucleated several times.”

Can you imagine having beads crammed in your gonads repeatedly? Me either, and I don’t have any! And an oyster’s gonads can’t possibly be as big as a human’s!

OK, enough about gonads. Let’s talk about Conch Pearls (you really should read this little editorial about them after you finish this). Up until last night, I had never heard of these. And I thought I knew every stone out there! I mean, short of being a gemologist, I’m highly knowledgeable about gems and jewelry, but this was a new one to me.

Here's a picture of a strand of Conch pearls, which are basically conch kidney stones and not true pearls. Melo Melo Pearls are similar, but come from another type of marine snail. They’re all so extremely rare that small ones are listed on Ebay for thousands of dollars (look it up and you’ll see!) However, after reading the above article I would have to say they’re not worth it. Most of them look like beads of peach-colored coral and there is no way that I would spend thousands and thousands of dollars on, say, a ring only to have people look at it, squint their eyes, and say “Hey! That’s an awful purty coral ring you have there.”

“Ah no,” you would say. “Here, take this jeweler’s loupe and look at the faint flame striations that are present in the bead!” Nope… pass. Just gimme an old-fashioned, inhumane, whopper of a pearl ring.

If you’d like to know all there is to know about pearls, go to Pearl-Guide.com, which is where I excerpted the quotes above. You can also read about Famous Pearls which were incredible finds. To see some gorgeous photos of some other famous pearls go here.

Just wait till I tell you about diamonds.