South sea
pearls are saltwater pearls harvested using the Pinctada
maxima oyster. The pinctada oyster commonly known as the
silver lipped oyster, is found in the South Seas. This
oyster is much larger than the oysters that produce Akoya
and Freshwater pearls, so the pearl that it produces is
much larger as well. Because of the rarity and sensitivity
of this type of oyster, cultivation of these pearls is
much more difficult, making them more expensive. South Sea
pearls are large cultivated pearls grown in the waters of
Australia, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, the Philippines,
Thailand, and Burma. The colors of south sea pearls can
range from white, silvery-white, and bluish-white, to
gold, cream, or silver. The size of South Sea pearls range
from 10 - 20 mm but pearls larger than 16 mm are very
rare. These pearls are the most costly pearls today among
the cultured pearls and are found very rare. Since
hundreds of years there oysters were harvested for button
making by the divers and if a pearl was found inside the
shell then it was considered as a bonus. Earlier
Australian people believed that these natural gems have
supernatural powers. They used oyster shells and the
pearls within them for trading for food and tools and for
decorative purposes in houses and clothes.
In the 16th and 17th centuries European explorers started
coming to south pacific and explored these pearls. A
unique global demand developed for these pearls. This
demand reached to such a high level in the 18th and 19th
centuries that it caused South Sea pearl-producing oysters
to be exploited to the point of extinction. Till the 20th
century nearly over 400 sailboats were employed for pearl
diving and shell collection in Australia. Understanding
south sea pearls can be easy. Farmers implant a mother of
pearl beads into oysters in the hope of producing a
perfectly round, high luster, clean pearl. The larger the
pearl the oyster produces, the more valuable it is in the
trade. Farmers hope that their entire crop turns out with
these large pearls that are perfectly round. However, as
the oyster fights this mother of pearl bead implant (which
it sees as a foreign body) and the oyster's environment is
disrupted by unpredictable weather, the likelihood of
producing a perfectly round pearl that is beautiful and
blemish free decreases. That is why a perfectly round
south sea pearl is considered to be a paragon.
