Tahitian cultured pearls are renowned for their dark bodycolor often accompanied by stunning overtone and orient. The Tahitian cultured pearls seen here were grown in Rangiroa, French Polynesia. Image  shows an expert grafter inserting a shell bead into a Pinctada Margaritifera oyster. This process must be done quickly and carefully to reduce trauma to the oyster and decrease the chance of the oyster rejecting the bead. The oyster will gradually coat the bead over 16 to 24 months to create a Tahitian cultured pearl. Image 3 shows a Tahitian cultured pearl being extracted from an oyster. Often, after a period of rest, a new shell bead is inserted into the oyster and it is put back in the ocean to produce another pearl. Curious about the quality of your cultured pearls? 

People have used mother-of-pearl for adornment since pre-historic times. In more recent centuries it also turned up in marquetry, gaming chips, devotional objects and, as a bead, in the cultured pearl industry. It was also the raw material of the button trade, hugely popular until plastics took over. Mother-of-pearl is the smooth, iridescent nacre that lines the inside of certain mollusc shells. Pinctada maxima, the Australian South Sea pearl oyster (also called the pearl button oyster and mother-of-pearl oyster), has been an important source, both for the quality of its nacre and for the sheer size of its wild shells, which average 20 to 30 cm and reach 40 cm in exceptional cases. Local shells in the north had been gathered since pre-history, but Australia's pearling industry proper began in 1868, centred on Queensland. In the photos, a pearl shell sorter on Thursday Island, Queensland, Australia. Photo Frank Hurley © National Library of Australia; and a series of Pinctada maxima shells being worked into buttons, from the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences collection (B&W picture from 1933 at the Pearlbutton Manufacturing Co. Ltd in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia).

Source: Rui Galopim de Carvalho (Portugal Gemas Academy)