Akoya cultured pearls quality is known world over. As everyone knows there are two types of Akoya pearls: Chinese Akoya pearl and Japanese Akoya pearl. Japanese Akoya pearls are more expensive than Chinese Akoya pearls for the same size and same grade because labor cost is more expensive in Japan than in China.

Chinese cultured pearls with nucleus are graded according to the system for Japanese Akoya cultures pearls, which was describe in the previous chapter. It is probably correct to say that Chinese and Japanese Akoya cultures pearls do not have distinct differences if they have been processed in the same way.

Japanese Akoya pearls
The size of Japanese Akoya culture pearls is in a range of 3mm to 10mm. The shapes of cultured pearls are usually divided into round, symmetrical and baroque shapes, and are described using seven standard shapes. The thickness of the pearly layer that grows onto the nucleus, known as mark in Japanese, has the highest influence on both quality and value of an Akoya cultured pearl.

Chinese Akoya pearls
In the early nineties, certain characteristics were considered proof of Chinese origin and shall be mentioned here for the sake of completeness but have to be interpreted with care Chinese Akoya cultured pearls trend to be only rarely perfectly round. Nearly round to off-round shapes seem to be more frequent than in Japanese pearls.

Nacre thickness is thin in a large part of the Chinese production, lending the pearls a strikingly white appearance. Surface often have distinct growth characteristics, which are described as spots. The frequency of spots is spots is probably directly related to the low quality of nuclei.

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