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I am always being asked are our pearls natural or cultivated. Well, I say "they are natural". And then I go on to explain what I mean. All pearls are natural, although some pearls are a helped along by man, and that makes them cultivated. A natural pearl differs from a cultivated pearl only in that through the science of perliculture, the formation of a pearl is helped along by the deliberate implanting of a foreign object into the soft body of the mollusk, and nurturing it until the mollusk produces a cultured pearl. The only difference in the actual formation of the pearl is that in a natural pearl the foreign object is introduced accidentally.
Today, virtually all of the pearls on the market are cultured, the exception being antiques and the very few wild pearls found.
Actually though, there is a difference in the world of gems.
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