Pearls come in a wide variety of shapes, colours and sizes.  Each shape has its own unique characteristics and appeal. As supply and demand always determines the price of anything, the most popular pearls sell most quickly leading to higher prices than styles that are less appealing. Likewise, seeing as colour cannot be predicted, some colours are more expensive than others. Round pearls traditionally command the highest prices but it’s worth remembering that natural pearls were rarely absolutely round.

Selecting a different shape can give you an opportunity to own more pearls without breaking the bank.

Choosing a colour is largely a matter of skin tone and personal preference. Similar to choosing s shirt or a wedding dress most of us know whether our skin tone goes better with one or the other. Classic white, ivory and cream are usually a safe bet. Most white pearls have a secondary undertone to the white — such as cream or peach. Some whites have a slight blue undertone.

Today most pearls are farmed – Freshwater Pearls, rather than wild pearls.

Pearl Guide

Round Pearls are rarely perfect spheres unless they are of gem quality or imitation. The longer the pearl remains within the oyster or mussel the more chance there is of it developing an irregular shape. Therefore gem quality pearls are more expensive and sell quickly — especially in white or black as those are the most popular colours.

When a Freshwater pearl is produced, it is a natural process and nature doesn’ t necessarily respond to the tastes of consumers. Contrary to the images portrayed in films very large round pearls are uncommon – and expensive. Even pearls nucleated with a shell bead have a hard time keeping their shape as they grow.  However, the degree of perfectly round, is relative. It can look round to the naked eye but under the scrutiny of a trained eye or scientific examination it may not be truly round.

The term off-round is used to describe pearls which are ’roundish’ to the eye but have a slightly oval or flattened shape. Very sophisticated selection processes and carefully selecting which direction to drill the pearl may make more slightly off round pearls acceptable for most consumers.  They can still have excellent qualities in terms of lustre or lack of blemish.

Oval Pearls

Oval pearls are sometimes known as rice pearls. In the very early days of Chinese freshwater pearl production, or farming,  large numbers of low quality pearls entered the market and were derided as ‘Rice-Crispies’ after the cereal.  Today, more sophisticated methods of controlling the production of  Freshwater pearls has lead to more round or off-round pearls by comparison to oval pearls than in the earlier days of Freshwater Pearl cultivation.

Oval pearls can form when two pearls in the same mollusc join together.

Baroque Pearls

Most natural (wild) pearls were off-round or baroque. Baroque is a term which very simply means irregular shaped. Some people like these as they argue they have more character and look more like something produced in nature. The type of pearls one likes varies as much as our tastes it does in our clothing choices in general. Perhaps, it is intuitive that people who like more casual styled clothing are less likely to like the perfectly formed round pearl and may prefer the irregularity and character of Baroque pearls.

While the intent of seeding mollusks with a round shell bead is to encourage the production of a round pearl, it doesn’t always work. Bead nucleated pearls (pearls seeded with a round shell bead) may develop a tail on one side.

The most valuable baroque pearls are South Sea and Tahitian. Due to the length of time under cultivation a high percentage of the pearl harvest is baroque.

Button Pearls

Many people think of an oyster or mussel producing one pearl. In fact a mollusk may create over a dozen pearls depending on how it is seeded. One oyster can also produce many different shapes of pearls at one time. These may include button pearls.

Some of these are button pearls, so-called because of their shape are usually round on one side and flat on the other.

Though unrelated to button pearls, America once had a thriving industry producing mother-of-pearl buttons for coats and jackets. Plastic killed the industry but American mussel shells are still exported to Japan for nucleating seawater pearls.

Keishi Pearls

Keishi Pearls occur accidentally when the mollusc rejects the nucleus and grows a ‘free form’ pearl.

Pearl Colours

Pearls come in a variety of colours. You could say that the color of a pearl is partly determined by nature and partly determined by nurture. Natural colours are mainly down to to the breed of mollusc. Other influences include diet, water temperature and pollutants.

It is extremely difficult if not impossible to can predict or control the colour pearls that will be produced in any hatchery.

Black pearls are rarely jet black but blue, green, grey, aubergine, peacock and more. Black with green tones is the predominant shade of pearl.

Naturally coloured black pearls come from the pearl farms of French Polynesia (Tahitian pearls) as well as Indonesia and the Phillipines.

Except for rare instances, there are no natural black freshwater or Akoya pearls. Freshwater pearls or Akoya pearls are often dyed or irradiated to simulate black pearls. The majority of ‘black’ pearls are treated in some way – it doesn’t harm the pearl.