Pearl Category - By Place of Origin

1. South Sea Pearl
South Sea Pearl is produced in the South Pacific water, the main producing shell is the large bead oyster shell, the main producing countries includes Australia, Indonesia, Philippines, Myanmar, Thailand and so on. South Sea cultured pearl is the most important source of high-end market seawater pearls. White is the main color of South Sea pearls, There are also some golden pearls, but very little production, estimated annual output of less than 100 kg, mainly in Australia, Myanmar, Malaysia and other countries.

2. Tahitian Black Pearl
Tahitian Black Pearl is mainly produced by the black lip shell which is distributed in the nearly square see waters at 0 - 20 Degrees South Latitude, 150 - 180 Degrees East Longitude, a large part comes from the water marsh of the islands which is formed from free coral reefs. Natural Black Pearl appears in the 18th century, and had been suffered from an serious man-made disasters in the 19th century . it was farmed since the early 1960s, the first 1,000 black cultured pearls were produced in 1965, now, most of the Tahitian black pearls on the market are cultured pearls.

3. Japanese seawater cultured pearls
Japan is the pioneer of modern seawater cultured pearls, the Japanese seawater cultured pearls is the protagonist of the international marketplace before 1990s, the maximum annual production of the seawater pearls was more than 100 tons ever, so for some time, the good seawater pearls were also known as Akoya Pearls, Mainly because that the cultured pearls of Akoya in the southern harbor area of Japanese are the best quality and enjoy a high reputation in the international marketplace.

4. Chinese South Sea seawater cultured pearls
Chinese South Sea seawater cultured pearls entered the international marketplace on a large scale in the 1980s, the current production has been close to the level of the Japanese seawater pearls. Chinese seawater cultured pearls mainly come from Guangxi Hepu and the North Sea, Leizhou Peninsula in Guangdong and the Sanya in Hainan, and other places.

5. Freshwater cultured pearls
In the world, freshwater pearls are mainly located in 20 - 40 Degrees North Latitude, freshwater pearls grow mainly in rivers and lakes. the famous "North Pearl" in Chinese history is the representative of such natural freshwater pearls. According to historical records, such pearls mainly produced in the lakes and rivers of Heilongjiang River Basin, so it has been known as "Lake Pearl". The pearl mussels used to culture freshwater pearls in Japan are Hyriopis Schegeli, and the pearl mussels used to cultured freshwater pearls in China mainly are CristariaPlicata, Hyriopsis cumingi, Lamprotula leai and clams, etc. Among them, the pearls produced in Hyriopsis cumingi mussel have the highest value.

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Refer to 3A-Pearl