Abalone Pearls

Hello

I was recently out snorkelling in Wellington, NZ, and on a couple of
occasions I have come across some small pearls within the Abalone
that I had found.

I have taken some photos as best as I could to show the location and
formation of the pearls within the Abalone and I thought you might
be interested in having a look. I have been trying to find similar
documentation such as this in various publications and on the
internet with no luck so I thought I would take a few photos of my
own for educational purposes.

I hope you enjoy viewing these as much as I enjoyed finding them. If
you have any questions, feedback or advice, I would love to hear
from you.











Thanks and kind regards,
Lou Hill

Thanks for the pictures…I enjoyed seeing them…just made a couple
pendants from abalone shells…came out nice…

Barb in Las Vegas

Lou,

I am on an AB Pearl site but I cannot find the URL/email address at
this time. I will try to remember your note and send you the info
when I get it. I have a friend in N. CA who has a 3.75 inch long “gut
pearl” he found. All sides are beautiful nacre colors. Figure is is
worth about $3,000 but not sure.

Your pearls were beautiful, wish I were there when you were getting
them…

John Dach

If anyone wants a picture(s) of the pearl, email me off site and I
will send them to you as I am not sure how to put them on the orchid
site.

Mr Hill:

Have you tried the Natural History Museums? I don’t recall which
one, but one of the NZ museums has a Department of Invertebrates or
Molluscs. The museum I worked for (Chicago) did co-op research with
some of their scientists. I have seen these pearls before and they
are quite striking. One of our scientists did quite a bit of
underwater collecting around New Zealand.

You could probably get permission to visit their library; they might
also like to see what you’ve collected. The publications that would
have such pictures would be scientific journals and probably not
available outside a museum or university library.

Lin Lahlum

Lou

Nice find, what do you plan to do with them?
Nice photos.

Terry

Hello lou

I really enjoyed the pictures of your abalone pearls. They are verry
special !!!

Straight away they made me think of (fish? shark?) teeth.

If I combine that with: what natural pearls realy are and how they
are formed (hostile particles that intrude the shell and get covered
in mother-of-pearl) I’m tempted to think that your abalone’s
encountered teeth and made them into pearls (a freak of nature?).

I’ve seen pictures of pearl budda’s. They inserted little budda’s
statues in to the shells to turn them in to pearl budda’s.

Maybe this is a direction to look for in your search for what these
pearls are.

Good luck and ceep me posted if you find out :slight_smile:

Monique Gregory

Actually crab claw tips and Otter “fingers” have been covered with
nacre to form pearls. Often it is a piece of wood, wayward kelp
piece, etc. Some ab pearls are many and small roundish objects, most
likely sand. Doubt if shark teeth, but crab claw tips are surely a
potential. Also, most ab pearls sold on the market are shell pearls,
“pearls” cut from the inside of the shell. These tend to be formed
in areas where tube worms drill all the way through the shell and the
hole on the inside is then covered with nacre forming a “bump” in the
shell that is cut out and sold as a “pearl”. The ones we have been
talking about and the posted pictures, were “gut pearls” objects that
got into the animals gut and then were covered with nacre. Shell
pearls most often are “colored” or coated with nacre on one side, the
side facing into the gut/foot area. Gut pearls are formed in the gut
and are coated on all sides with nacre.

Probably more that you wanted to know!!

Lastly, there is a small industry in parts of the world making the
shell pearls that are sold through wholesale/retail outlets, but I
have never seen gut pearls sold from these sources as they are so
VERY rare, much more so than natural oyster pearls.

John Dach

Abalone Pearls?

How many would you like?

What size do you want?

What about special shapes?

Given that literally ALL pearls on the market these days are the
creation of man, there is at least one high tech answer to the lust
for abalone pearls.

You probably think I’m joshing you, right?

Think again

http://www.sfu.ca/~fankbone/r/pcfcprl.html

Oh, this is only for those who are really serious about abalone
pearls.

Randolph Post

Randolph,

http://www.sfu.ca/~fankbone/r/pcfcprl.html 

The pearls made this way are shell pearls. The pictures of the ones
that started this thread were “gut pearls”. One is very different
from the other in how formed, WHERE formed and value. Gut [earls are
RARE!!!

JD