februari 18, 2022
What do you know about Mabe Pearls?
Here's a distinction that trips up a lot of buyers, and one we explain at the counter all the time. For a gem to be a true pearl, it has to form inside a pearl sac — a closed membrane of cells — within a pearl-producing mollusc. A cultured pearl works the same way; the only difference is that a technician implants the nucleus that starts the process instead of leaving it to chance. When no pearl sac is involved, the material is something else entirely, and that's where mabe sit.
Mabe pearls (also called hankei pearls) are the textbook example. Technically they are not pearls at all, because they don't grow inside a pearl sac. They are half-pearls — blisters of nacre grown against the inside of the shell, on top of a flat-backed nucleus the technician glues to the shell's interior. The oyster coats that nucleus with mother-of-pearl over a year or two, exactly as it would coat any irritant on its shell wall. The result is a domed cultured blister.
Turning that blister into a wearable gem is an assembly job. The blister is cut out of the shell, the soft nucleus is dug out from behind, the hollow is filled with a hardened resin or paste for strength, and a flat disc of mother-of-pearl is glued over the base to finish it. Because of all that, the honest trade name is an assembled cultured blister — useful to know, since a mabe's thin nacre dome is more fragile than a whole pearl and shouldn't take hard knocks. Their flat back, though, makes them ideal for rings, earrings, and pendants, and their large size relative to price is part of the appeal.
The word "mabe" comes from the Japanese name for Pteria penguin — mabe-gai — the winged pearl oyster originally used to grow these blisters. It has since become a romantic catch-all trade name for similar assembled blisters grown in other molluscs, including the black-lipped Pinctada margaritifera of French Polynesia.
Mabe pearls (also called hankei pearls) are the textbook example. Technically they are not pearls at all, because they don't grow inside a pearl sac. They are half-pearls — blisters of nacre grown against the inside of the shell, on top of a flat-backed nucleus the technician glues to the shell's interior. The oyster coats that nucleus with mother-of-pearl over a year or two, exactly as it would coat any irritant on its shell wall. The result is a domed cultured blister.
Turning that blister into a wearable gem is an assembly job. The blister is cut out of the shell, the soft nucleus is dug out from behind, the hollow is filled with a hardened resin or paste for strength, and a flat disc of mother-of-pearl is glued over the base to finish it. Because of all that, the honest trade name is an assembled cultured blister — useful to know, since a mabe's thin nacre dome is more fragile than a whole pearl and shouldn't take hard knocks. Their flat back, though, makes them ideal for rings, earrings, and pendants, and their large size relative to price is part of the appeal.
The word "mabe" comes from the Japanese name for Pteria penguin — mabe-gai — the winged pearl oyster originally used to grow these blisters. It has since become a romantic catch-all trade name for similar assembled blisters grown in other molluscs, including the black-lipped Pinctada margaritifera of French Polynesia.
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