Pearl has both customer-friendly low price and high price for the level of auction and collection. When you come to the pearl market, those different colors and different appellation of variety will be definitely a headache for you. Plusing businessmen’ s exaggerated statement, people would be more difficult to choose. Following are the introduction to some evident pearl variety to help you know something about pearls when you are purchasing and collecting.

Freshwater pearl
Freshwater pearls means produced in river bassin. Our country’ freshwater pearls have been occupied 95% of the world’ s total amount of freshwater pearls. It is the main force in the market which belongs to customer-friendly pearl variety. The main production area is in the middle-lower Yangtze. Produced from different oysters, among which hyriopsis cumingii produce the best quality of pearls. The pearls’ quality is smooth and delicate, with better roundness and glossiness, while growing slowly. The pearl produced by cristaria plicata has many drapes. Many of them are long circle, mainly white or pink colors. Japan also produce pearl which cultivated by Hyriopsis schlegelii. It has short circle and high quality.

South pearl
Pearl can be divided into east pearl, west pearl and south pearl in our country according to the production area. East pearl means the pearl in the area of sea. West pearl is the pearl produced in the Atlantic, south Pacific and Australia. There is also a saying that ”east pearl is not as good as west pearl, west pearl is not as good as south pearl.” The name of south pearl is the general name in the area of Guang Xi, Guang Dong and Hai Nan where the pearl produced that has been started from Qin dynasty. Among which Hepu’s pearl is in the best quality. Hepu is in the east of guangdong, in the south of hainan and in the west it connects across the sea to vietnam. The natural environment is richly endowed by nature. There is no pollution in north bay waters in a hundred mile radius. Clean water, rich inorganic salt, plankton and gentle weather are to breed the peculiar quality of Hepu pearl. South pearl in Hepu is not only in big production, but also has the following characterictics: dinified and strong, clear and sleek. What’s more, the luster never changes. Therefore, it was praised as “ national treasure” in last dynasties, and it became tribute since Qin-Han dynasty. It is world-famous akoya pearl in our country. The pearl on the English queen which is as big as thumb is the China’ s authentic akoya pearl.

Japan AKOYA pearl
When refers to modern times’ cultured pearl, we have to mention Japan AKOYA pearl. This is a kind of pearl cultivated offshore in the area of Mie Prefectural Government，Kikuchi, Ehime Prefecture. In 1750s, Japanese came to China to learn the experience of cultivating pearls and introduced Markov wild shell from Guang Xi northsea to breed more, gradually selected and cultivated famous AKOYA pearls. We can say AKOYA pearl and China south pearl belongs to the same kind. South pearl is the ancestor of AKOYA pearl. The diameter of AKOYA pearl generally is over 7mm and can reach to the maximum for 10mm. Main colors are pink white, cream and silver blue. With pretty strict quality control and rigorous price control, without big rise and fall unstably factors, thus it is famous at home and abroad. However, as China’ s technology of cultivating pearl and the continuous improvement and development of the scale plus the increasingly pollution in Japan offshore, the status and production also suffer tremendous challenges.

South sea pearl
As rare production of natural pearls, extremely high price thus superior south sea pearl become another hotspot for customer investment. South sea means the waters in north Australian, Philipine, Malaysia, and Indonesian island. This is the most beautiful sea area in the world. It also breeds the most beautiful miracle in the world ---south sea pearl. There are clean, warm and quiet water, with rich phytoplankton which are suitable for pearls’ growth. Breeding south sea pearl’s mother pearl is the world’s biggest pearl shell and the longest circle among all pearl shells. The south sea pearl can be divided to three series for white (including silver white), gold and black.

White south pearl is cultivated by gold-lip, as it will secrete white nacre inside. Some of the gold-lips can secrete gold nacre also called gold lipped, mainly appeared from south Philipine to the sea area near Kalimantan Island. This rare shell breeds gold pearl. The gold south sea pearl with superiority occupies 2%-3% of south sea pearl’ total production. Therefore, it is invaluable and is one of the main aims for Professional collectors to find.

Black pearl
Black pearl might be the most familiar akoya pearls. It is pure black, dark gray and silver. Among which the black pearl with malachite green is the most mysterious and charming. It has the highest value and is adored by people. Superior black pearl’ annual output will not exceed 150 thousand. 40% of it will be sold through the annual international auction. Most of black pearls’ diameters are between 9mm and 10mm, about 60% or more are not over 11mm. Therefore, we often regard 11mm as the boundaries of the treasure of black pearl‘s. While those refined and round pearl over 15mm are more rarely to see.

In present, there are two main producing areas: first is French Polynesia’s Tahiti which produces about 95% global world’s black pearl. So Tahiti became the pronoun of black pearl. Second are the PengLin island in Cook islands and the horse hickey island which occupy 4% of the world’s total output.

Asahi pearl
The asahi pearls that businessmen often mention are those seedless akoya cultured pearls with smaller size, black or white colors and irregular shape. Superior asahi pearl is famous for its strong luster and Rainbow-colored IRIS. South sea pearl also produces better quality of Asahi pearls.

Blister pearl   
The common pearl we see belongs to detached pearl which will be in completely separation after maturity. While after planting nuclear to blister pearl, pallium can not package it completely that lead to the adhesion between one side of this kind of pearl and the inside of matrix shell. When taking out the pearl, we should cut off matrix shell and attach a layer of mother of pearl shell to form a composite cultured pearl.   

Mable pearl
If we cut off blister pearl’s nucleus and fill wax in it and piece a layer of nacre layer, then it becomes Mabe pearl. The features of this kind of pearl are big particle, strong luster and clean surface. The sizes are different from 10mm to 17mm even more. There are many shapes such as round, water drop, oval and heart. It is the popular choice in the current jewelry market and fashion jewelry. High quality of Mable pearl is produced in Australia.