Frequently Asked Questions about Pearls
What’s the difference between a saltwater pearl and a freshwater pearl? What are some of the popular pearl shapes? How do you determine the quality of a pearl? These are some questions we get asked frequently. Here are some very brief answers to each question. More detailed information is also available in our All About Pearls.
About Saltwater and Freshwater Pearls
Freshwater and salt water pearls can both be intentionally grown and harvested. In both situations, irritants are placed within an oyster (salt water) or mussel (fresh water) and they produce nacre (pearl material) around the irritant. After a few years, the end result is a pearl.
Freshwater pearls have more imperfections, such as not being as round or smooth, when compared to salt water pearls. As a result, freshwater pearls are much less expensive and quite popular among jewelry makers. Almost all freshwater pearls are died or treated in some way to produce a wide array of colors. The good news is that the dye is very resilient and rarely “bleeds” on most pearls.
What Freshwater Pearl Shapes are Available?
Thanks to some new nucleating techniques, freshwater pearls can be found in a nearly endless variety of shapes, but the more traditional shapes include:
- Round - Perfectly spherical, or very nearly so. These are primarily saltwater pearls, although the Chinese have recently succeeded in creating round freshwater pearls.
- Stick - Long and thin with many irregularities.
- Rice - Small ovals drilled lengthwise.
- Potato - Often lumpy, these are typically rounder than rice pearls and may be drilled either lengthwise or widthwise.
- Nugget - Usually a little more square or pebble shaped than rice or potato pearls and almost always having a flat side.
- Coin - Large, circular and flat, often about the size of a dime, with the hole drilled end-to-end. Coin pearls, unlike most freshwater pearls, are created using a bead nucleus. Newer coin shapes include hearts, squares, ovals and large pears and drops.
- Keishi - Sometimes called “cornflake” pearls, these are flat and highly irregular. Keishi pearls are formed when an oyster manages to expel a bead nucleus, but continues to make a pearl.
- Drop - Teardrop, pear or even peanut shapes, drilled either lengthwise, or widthwise at the narrowest end.
- Button - Rondelle shaped, often with a flatter side, and drilled through the “hub” of the wheel. A “lollipop” pearl is a button pearl that has been drilled across the larger dimension of the pearl; lollipop pearls tend to be flat on the back and domed (curved) on the top.
How is Pearl Quality Measured?
The criteria that determine the quality of a pearl are based in part on the type of pearl being evaluated. In the case of freshwater pearls, these include shape, size, color, luster and surface quality.
Luster describes the way pearls seem to glow from within. It’s based on the depth of reflection due to the layering of the aragonite crystal.
Overtone describes the translucent “coating” of color that some pearls have. A silver pearl may have a blue overtone or a green overtone, for example. Orient, sometimes called iridescent orient, describes the variable play of colors across the surface of the pearl like a rainbow. While not all pearls have iridescent orient, freshwater pearls are known for their dramatic orient.
Since most freshwater pearls are sold by the strand and not as individual pearls, some of these factors, such as color and shape, are based on conformity within a particular strand.
The price range for freshwater pearls is very broad. We sell pearls ranging from $1.95 per strand to $178 per strand. Most are somewhere between $6 and $15.
We’ve included a couple of examples below. The first picture is of very high quality and very large Potato Pearls. These are sold on a graduated size strand. The second picture is of a small Potato Pearl Mix which includes many nice spring colors. The last picture is of some BOLD Rasberry Keishi Pearls.
See our entire selection at abeadstore.com or at our wholesale store PearlBeadSale.com.
Huge, high quality Potato Pearls - Graduated Size Strands
