Abalone Pearl
A natural pearl from an abalone, usually horn-shaped and intensely iridescent. One of the rarest pearls there is.
Abalone are single-shelled sea snails rather than bivalves, and pearls form in them only by accident.
They are rarely round. The classic abalone pearl is a horn or tooth shape, sometimes hollow, with blue, green and pink fire.
Because culturing them reliably is close to impossible, essentially every whole abalone pearl on the market is natural, and priced like a gemstone.
When you are buying
At this level you are buying a certified specimen, not a piece of jewellery. Insist on a report from a recognised laboratory before any money changes hands.
Paua Pearl
A rare blue-green pearl from the New Zealand paua, an abalone. Almost always a cultured half-pearl rather than a whole one.
Natural Pearl
A pearl that formed with no human involvement at all. Vanishingly rare, and effectively absent from the retail market.
Certification Labs
Independent gemmological laboratories that identify and grade stones and pearls. The name on the report is what gives it weight.
Orient
The faint shifting rainbow that plays across the surface of a fine pearl, distinct from its lustre or its colour.