Pearls are created when a grain of sand enters into the shell of an oyster; the grain causes much irritation to the oyster so as a defense mechanism the oyster will secret mucus to engross the grain. Over time the build up of this mucus forms around the sand grain and hardens, this process continuous for several years until eventually a hardened round stone has formed that we call a pearl.


Many years ago ships trenched the seas in search of these beautiful stones netting thousands of oysters to find the internal natural gem that was so coveted for its purity and beauty. These days the industry of pearl fishing is almost disappeared with the ability of men to culture pearls in controlled areas in which they impregnated the oyster with a grain of sand and basically wait for it to grow cutting out all the previous effort of sailing the seas in search of the natural pearls.


Kokichi Mikimoto was the first to patent the process of manufactured pearls by human hand in 1910. Since then nearly all pearls have been processed in this way either in salt water or fresh water. This man made process takes much away from the previous industry that risked life to search the high seas for the natural oysters hiding deep within the sultry sea bed for years. It seems the romance of the pearl is dying out albeit the demand for the perfect translucent droplets lives on due to the increase in supply of manufactured pearls.


The manufacturing and culturing of pearls has been copied all around the world in Australia, China, the Philippines as well as Japan some perfect some imperfect like the Keishi pearl which is a type of pearl that is irregular in spherity due to the attachment of mental to the mother of pearl bed causing its irregular shape. Keishi pearls are silver grey in color or can be black sometimes an unusual color can form. There is ample supply of pearls available due to this process making them affordable to all price ranges. As a result the supply of natural pearls have decreased leading to an increase in their value and decreasing the value of the manufactured pearl. So today the value of a natural pearl far exceeds the product of human hands.


Natural pearls have nearly ceased to exist on the market today apart from antique pearls that have been fished many years ago. Today there is no steady supply of natural pearls apart from the few found here and there it is very rare to find a natural pearl with the conditions of the seas over the last 50 years the oysters homes are no longer fresh and plentiful but polluted. Pearl divers and areas of sufficient supply are in shortage so it looks like the future of pearls depends on the willingness of man to culture by hand or arrange an area where the oysters can be placed in places of natural growth like what is being experimented with in the seas of the Arabian Gulf.