The BIGGEST Cortez Pearl Ever.
Oh yes! It happened this year. Finally after years of never seeing a really large Cortez Pearl we had the unique opportunity of harvesting a freakishly giant pearl measuring 17 mm in diameter. This huge dark-gray/purple baroque pearl is uniquely different from previous large Cortez Pearls because:
- The largest Cortez Pearl was a 14 mm baroque pearl that was not solid. It was a “gas giant pearl” and these pearls are usually filled with a stinky dark liquid (which I fondly call “Pepe” for “Pearl Petroleum”) and do not have a very thick coating of pearl. When the putrid liquid is removed (cleansing the interior with hydrogen peroxide) you are left with a very light and hollow pearl.
- The largest solid Cortez Pearl was a 12 mm near round pearl that was harvested in 2012. The largest nuclei (pearl beads) we employ for the production of a cultured pearl will measure 10 mm, so this large pearl is quite solid with 2 mm of nacre growth (or 1 mm of nacre to each “side”).
So this information –and the one that follows- basically lays down the information needed to hopefully understand what makes this Giant Cortez Pearl special and why it is most unlikely we will ever see another pearl like this in many, many more years. This is truly a one of a kind pearl. Let me explain some basic pointers.
The Pearl Sac
The Rainbow lipped pearl oyster is an animal with a tiny pearl sac. The “pearl sac” is -technically speaking- just a very thin layer or nacre producing cells that grow on top of the pearl (and initially on top of the mother-of-pearl nuclei), but many people refer to this sac as the “general anatomic area” where the pearl is growing. To place this in a context it is like when people refer as that “a baby is growing in a mommy’s tummy” as opposed to stating that “a fetus grows within the uterus”, so I hope you get the idea. So, the pearl sac of this species (the general pearl producing area) is incredibly small. Tiny. Insignificant. To give you an idea of how small it is you can watch a video of the extraction of a pearl from any other variety of pearl oyster and one from the rainbow lip. You will see the big difference!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSyFTvHuadY
Let me tell you a story of something that happened to me back in 2012 or 2011…can’t really recall the year. I was at the pearl farm when I was told we had some special visitors. Went up to meet with them and they were a couple of pearl farmers from Tahiti. I will not state their names in public out of respect of their privacy. So, I greeted them and they wanted to see the farm and in the end they requested me to open up an oyster so they could see its shell and anatomy (I could imagine a bit of “technical espionage” there, but no harm can come of something as simple) and when I did…that is when I was amazed! Their reaction was astronomically unique! Their eyes seemed to “pop out” of their heads, a look of utter disbelief painted in their faces and they would look at the animal then at my face then back at the oyster then back at my face and this in a very fast manner! Finally he was able of uttering this phrase: “How…how can you EVEN produce pearls larger than 8 mm!?!?!?!?!”
Well, their experience is rooted in the Tahitian Black lip oyster (remember: genus Pinctada) which is not only a much larger sized animal but also it has a very conspicuously large “pearl sac” in comparison with the Pteria sterna which has a very tiny and compact “pearl sac” surrounded by the animal’s intestines too. So, from their experience what we were doing producing pearls in sizes between 8 to 12 mm is simply impossible. It took them some time to regain composture, then they left and I have never heard from them again. Not even a postcard.
Nuclei Sizes
Since our rainbow lip oyster has this tiny pearl sac we can only use “small” mother of pearl beads. The smallest sized beads we use are the 6 and 6.5 mm nuclei (our average size when seeding oysters) and we also have other larger sizes, our biggest nuclei being a 10 mm bead. I –personally- very rarely use that size…and since we keep the information on the biggest sized beads we use for every daily operation during the pearl seeding season I can tell you with a 100%
So, the 12 mm pearl I mentioned before was quite obviously the product of a 9.6 or 10 mm nucleus, but this larger pearl was actually the product of a smaller bead: for that given day of seeding, the largest nucleus I used measured only 9.3 mm. If this particular pearl is the product of such pearl it means that it has a whopping 7.70 mm of nacre around the bead! This is clearly a lot more than the typical coating of 1.5 to 2.3 mm of nacre we see in our Cortez Cultured Pearls.
The photo on the right side displays the large baroque pearl with some “smaller” pearls (8.5 to 9.5 mm in diameter).
Why is this Pearl SO BIG?!?!?
I don’t really know. This is a mystery that only the destruction of the pearl or an advanced pearl analysis may help us understand and I would welcome an offer to analyze this pearl before it can be sold or goes into our “Pearl Museum” display.
My only guess is that the pearl producing cells of that rainbow lipped oyster worked under a different metabolic rate, probably in a state of angiogenesis (similar to what tumor cells do in our bodies, by promoting the growth of blood vessels to feed the tumor and allow it grow), but this is simply my guess.
So, what do you think made this pearl possible??? I leave you with this thought… cheers!
