Pearl Types

We often receive questions from fans: How many types of pearls are there in the world? Today, Feliz Pearl will introduce you to the pearl types in detail with this article.

We are going to classify pearls from two dimensions: Natural Pearls VS Cultured Pearls and Freshwater Pearls VS Seawater Pearls.

Natural Pearls VS Cultured Pearls

Pearl Types

Natural pearls usually refer to the pearls without any human intervention and produced by different kinds of shellfish, clams. Nowdays the natural pearls we know are Conch Pearls, Melo Pearls, Tridacna Pearls.

The formation of natural pearls is completely uncontrollable, so a piece of high quality natural pearls worth a lot.

Conch Pearl Earring          Conch Pearl Jewelry

Conch Pealrs: 

Conch pearls are produced by the Queen Conch Molliisk, which is found in various areas of the Caribbean. The pearls are generally with symmetrical oval shapes, although there are also some Baroque shapes. Also they are with the color from light pink to dark rose, reddish purple (extremely rare), purplish red, red, orangey red and reddish orange.
Conch Pearl Color
Conch Pearl Color

Melo pearls:

Melo pearls are non-nacreous pearls produced by a large sea snail called Melo Snail. These extremely rare gemstone pearls have a smooth glaze, sometimes with a flame-like pattern similar to conch pearls.

Melo Pearls

Melo Pearl

Tricdacna Pearls:

Tricdacna pearl is one of the organic gemstone, and produced by the giant bivalve mollusk, known as the Tridacna gigas or Giant Clam.

Tricdacna Pearl

Tricdacna Pearl

Natural Pearls

Nowdays the freshwater pearls like Edison Pearls, Non-nucleated Freshwater Pearls and the seawater pearls like akoya pearls, southseapearls, tahitian pearls are cultured pearls.

Freshwater Pearls VS Seawater Pearls

Freshwater Pearl VS Seawater Pearl

95% of the freshwater pearls are from China, they are produced by triangle clam, and cultivated in lake, rivers. Nowdays, freshwater pearls can be divded into three types: Non-nucleated freshwater pearls, edison pearls and freshwater ak pearls.

Triangle Clam

Non-nucleated freshwater pearls:
From the name we can see the pearls are without nucleaus inside, which means the pearl is full of pearl nacre from inside to outside. There are 20-30pcs pearls in one oyster, but most of the pearls are with lower quality. This is why high quality freshwater pearls worth the money. 
None-nucleated freshwater pearls are with four tipical color: white, champagne, lavender and cream.

Edison pearls:

Compared with the non-nucleated freshwater pearls, edison pearls are with nucleaus, which makes the pearl more round. Edison pearls are usually with purple and white color tone.

Edison Pearl

Freshwater AK Pearls:

These pearls are similar with the seawater Akoya pearls, i mean they are with the same cultivation technology. At the moment only white color available.

Freshwater AK pearl

Tahitian Pearls:

Tahitian pearls are produced by the black lip oyster. They are cultivated ib seawater. Color range from white to black.

Sea Akoya Pearls:

Sea akoya pearls are produced by the Pinctada martensii, pearl size from 3-10mm

Southsea White / Gold Pearls:

Southsea pearls are produced by gold/white lip oyster, size can be 10-19mm. Color can be white to gold. Southsea pearls are mainly cultured in Philipines, Australia.