Pearl Glossary

Baroque: asymmetrically shaped
Bib: pearl necklace of more than three strands
Blister pearl: a flat, irregulary shaped pearl witch grows on the inside of a mollusk shell
Choker: a unifor pearl necklace that drops to just above the collarbone
Complexion: the smoothness or roughness, of a pearl’ surface
Cleanliness: Absence of spots, cracks, or discoloration on a pearl’s surface
Cultured Pearl: a pearl produced when an irritant, such as a piece of shell, a mother of pearl bead or a piece of mantle tissue is inserted in a mollusk. It is human intervention. The pearl is formed by secretion of layers of nacre that have been nucleated by man.
Graduated: Necklace in witch pearls of gradually increasing size are strung with the smallest pearls near the clasp and the largest at the center.
Imitation pearls: pearl like beads produced when glass, plastic or shell beads are coated with a lustrous lacquer based substance sometimes made from fish scales
Keishi: all nacre, irregularly shaped pearls that form by chance in a nucleated mollusk shell.
Luster: the sharpness and intensity of reflected light from a pearl’s surface.
Mabe: Japanese term for half-sphere pearl made by affixing a nucleus inside the mollusk’s shell rather than into its tissue
Match: the degree to witch pearls in a piece of jewelry, especially a strand, are uniform in size, color, complexion, shape and luster. The better matched the strand, the more valuable it is.
Millimiter: the diameter measurement of the pearl. Approximately 1/25th of an inch
Matinee length: used to describe a pearl necklace strand 22 to 24 inches in long
Mystery clasp: a male screw and female receptor drilled into the pearls so the catching device cannot be differentiated from the rest of the necklace. Sometimes put in several sections of a long strand so that pieces can be made into chokers, bracelets or shorter strands
Nacre: an iridescent substance secreted by mollusk, the material of witch pearls are made
Natural Pearl: a pearl that has not been nucleated by man, most often, a pearl that has formede around an irritant, such a parasite, witch has found its way into a mollusk shell
Nucleate: to insert a particle, most often a mother of pearl bead along with a piece of mantle tissue, into a mollusk to initiate the grow of a pearl
Off round: not perfectly spherical in shape
Orient: color play on or under a pearl’s surface similar to color variations on a soap bubble
Opera length: used to described a pearl necklace 32 inches long
Princess length: used to describe a pearl necklace 18 to 22 inches long
Pearl enchancer: a pendant like ornament witch locks over a pearl strand
Pearl shortener: a hinged ring used to shorten strands by doubling the strand and hooking the loops into the shortener, can also be a safety pin styled finding used to pin part of strand to clothing
Sautoir or rope: a pearl necklace longer than 72 inches
South Sea cultured pearls: large (usually 10mm or more in diameter), mostly round pearls formed by oysters cultivated in the warm waters of the South Pacific, especially in Australia
Tahitian cultured black pearl: a variety of South Seas pearl produced by a black lipped oyster found throughout Polynesia. These pearls range from light gray to deep green to dark, gun-metal gray
Uniform: A necklace with nearly equal sized pearls throughout