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Aside from the obvious that one comes from freshwater and the other from salt. The two mollusks that produce the pearls, are different animals, one the freshwater is a mussel and the other is a saltwater oyster. Both bivalves meaning two shells and although very different species of mollusks, they are closer to each other than they are to other mollusks like the octopi.
The freshwater mussel is grown in farm ponds and irrigation ditches. The freshwater pearl may be grown on a family farm or a large scale farm. The akoya saltwater oysters are grown in elaborate professionally cared for, ocean pearl farms.
In either fresh or salt, pearls are produced by the mollusks reaction to an irritant. In the freshwater mussel, a piece of the mantle or soft tissue lining the shell is placed into a slit cut into the body, and the saltwater akoya the “irritant” is a bead made of shell from a freshwater mussel. In the wild in either case it might be anything from a parasite to a small fish, anything, although it is rarely a grain of sand.
Freshwater mussels can produce up to 40 pearls at a time, and be cultured many times without killing the mussel. The salt water akoya can produce at most two or three pearls at a time, and it dies after one implanting.
These are some of the reasons for the difference in price. And another reason is the value we place on the “perfect” pearl. Roundness is one of the values that make a pearl more desirable and therefore more expensive. However, the new culturing techniques have improved the quality of roundness in freshwater cultured pearls. All of the higher grades like we sell at Sunshine Pearls are very similar in the values that make pearls more valuable.
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