Perhaps the best-loved gems of all time, pearls—natural and cultured—occur in a wide variety of colors. The most familiar are white and cream, but the palette of colors extends to every hue. Natural pearls form around a microscopic irritant in the bodies of certain mollusks. Cultured pearls are the result of the deliberate insertion of a bead or piece of tissue that the mollusk coats with nacre.
2206 BC
A Chinese historian writes about pearls for the first time.
653 Fifth Avenue
In 1917, Pierre Cartier traded a double strand of natural pearls for a mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York City.
1893
Kokichi Mikimoto successfully cultures a pearl in Japan.
Facts
- Mineral: Calcium Carbonate
- Chemistry: CaCO3
- Color: White, black, gray, yellow, orange, pink, lavender, green, blue
- Refractive Index: 1.52-1.69
- Specific Gravity: 2.60-2.85
- Mohs Hardness: 2.5-3.0