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Hence significant numbers of natural pearls are still found in the Australian Indian Ocean waters from wild oysters. X-ray examination is required to positively verify natural pearls found today.

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Australian pearl divers dive for south sea pearl oysters to be used in the cultured south sea pearl industry. The catch of pearl oysters is similar to the numbers of oysters taken during the natural pearl days.

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Origin of a natural pear

Mary, Queen of Scots wearing a rope of black pearls

Previously, natural pearls were found in many parts of the world. Present day natural pearling is confined mostly to seas off Bahrain. Australia also has one of the world's last remaining fleets of pearl diving ships.

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Essentially, the controversy damaged the images of both natural and cultured pearls. By the 1950s, when every woman could own her own cultured pearl necklace, natural pearls were reduced to a small, exclusive niche in the pearl industry.

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Pearl dealers publicly disputed the authenticity of these new cultured products, and left many consumers uneasy and confused about their much lower prices.

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The Great Depression slashed the values of natural pearls, but there is no doubt this had been some time coming. The introduction and advance of the cultured pearl hit the pearl industry hard.

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Fifth Avenue mansion that is now the New York Cartier store in exchange for a matched double strand of natural pearls Cartier had been collecting for years; at the time, it was valued at $1 million USD.)

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Single natural pearls are often sold as collectors' items, or set as centerpieces in unique jewelry. Very few matched strands of natural pearls exist, and those that do often sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. (In 1917, jeweler Pierre Cartier purchased the

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Value of a natural pearl

Pearl tiara of Empress Eugénie (1853) featuring 212 natural pearls, Louvre, Paris.

Fine quality natural pearls are very rare jewels. Their values are determined similarly to those of other precious gems, according to size, shape, color, quality of surface, orient and luster.

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Natural and cultured pearls can be distinguished from imitation pearls using a microscope. Another method of testing for imitations is to rub two pearls against each other. Imitation pearls are completely smooth, but natural and cultured pearls are composed of nacre platelets, making both feel slightly gritty.

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With X-rays it is possible to see the growth rings of the pearl, where the layers of calcium carbonate are separated by thin layers of conchiolin. The differentiation of natural pearls from non-beaded cultured pearls can be very difficult without the use of this X-ray technique.

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Gemological identification

A well-equipped gem testing laboratory can distinguish natural pearls from cultured pearls by using gemological X-ray equipment to examine the center of a pearl.

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Although imitation pearls look the part, they do not have the same weight or smoothness as real pearls, and their luster will also dim greatly.

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Imitation pearls[edit]

Main article: Imitation pearl

Some imitation pearls (also called shell pearls) are simply made of mother-of-pearl, coral or conch shell, while others are made from glass and are coated with a solution containing fish scales called essence d'Orient.

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 A beadless cultured pearl (whether of freshwater or saltwater origin) may show growth rings, but also a complex central cavity, witness of the first precipitation of the young pearl sac.

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A beaded cultured pearl shows a solid center with no concentric growth rings, whereas a natural pearl shows a series of concentric growth rings.

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When a cultured pearl with a bead nucleas is X-rayed, it reveals a different structure to that of a natural pearl (see diagram).

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After a bead is inserted into the oyster, it secretes a few layers of nacre around the bead; the resulting cultured pearl can then be harvested in as few as six months.

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Cultured pearls can be distinguished from natural pearls by X-ray examination. Nucleated cultured pearls are often 'preformed' as they tend to follow the shape of the implanted shell bead nucleus.

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Most saltwater cultured pearls are grown with beads. Tradenames of cultured pearls are Akoya, white or golden South sea, and black Tahitian. Most beadless cultured pearls are mantle-grown in freshwater shells in China, and are known as freshwater cultured pearls.