Edison Pearls: Technological Breakthrough Making HighQuality Pearls Affordable Since ancient times, pearls have been the jewel worn by royalty. Pearls represented wealth and power, and for a period, only nobles were allowed to wear them. In the last century, freshwater pearl farming made pearls accessible to women from all walks of life, but although beautiful, these beads were usually small and sometimes of lower quality. A breakthrough in pearl farming technology sees a new breed of pearls – Edison pearls – that are big, almost perfectly round, come in a variety of unique colors, and are affordable.
Classification of Pearls The first classification is between natural or wild pearls and farmed or cultured pearls. Natural or wild pearls are formed without the interference of humans, while pearl farmers grow cultured pearls. The next distinction is between saltwater pearls and freshwater pearls. There are mainly two different types of farmed pearls: tissue nucleated and bead nucleated. Nucleation is the process of growing cultured pearls and starts with inserting a foreign object – the nucleus – into the mollusk. That triggers the mollusk to cover the nucleus with nacre until a pearl is formed. The nucleus can either be a bead or a piece of mantle tissue from another shell.