Japanese Akoya Pearls are the ideal choice if you are looking for a classic pearl necklace, a bracelet, or earrings. They are very elegant pearls that, due to their not overly large size, can be worn both every day and at any event.

Until the end of the 1990s, Akoya pearls were the most popular pearls in the world. With the improvement in the quality of Freshwater pearls and their more affordable price, they gradually gained ground, but even today Akoya pearls are still the ideal choice for anyone looking for more exclusive pearls with a unique luster.

A good Akoya pearl necklace is to jewelry what a good black handbag is to clothing: a basic that can be worn in countless situations and never goes out of style. 

How valuable are Akoya pearls?

Unlike the mussels that create Freshwater pearls, the oysters of Akoya pearls rarely produce more than two pearls per harvest. Oysters are given a round mother-of-pearl nucleus and a small piece of mantle tissue from a donor oyster. This small nucleus is the reason why Akoya pearls are often so round. This shape, combined with the high luster of high-quality Akoya pearls and their relative scarcity compared to Freshwater pearls, gives Akoya pearls greater value.

Compared with Australian or Tahitian, Akoya are the most affordable of these three saltwater pearls, due to the larger size and scarcity of the first two. However, as we mentioned in this other article, the value depends not only on origin; the quality of the pearls in question also matters, so this is only a rough guide.

In SY Pearls, we only offer very high-quality Akoya pearls, personally selected by our pearl expert. Because Akoya pearls are, per se, a more exclusive product, we believe it makes no sense to offer our customers lower-quality Akoya pearls when they could instead purchase our Freshwater pearls, which have excellent quality and price and surpass those lower-quality Akoya pearls in beauty.

 

An interesting fact is that the Akoya oyster “Pinctada Fucata Martensii” is the smallest oyster farmed for pearl production and, therefore, the pearls obtained are not very large.

The average size of a Akoya pearl is only 7 mm, while the average size of an Australian pearl is around 12 mm. The sizes in which you can find Akoya pearls range from as little as one millimeter to a few rare 10-11 mm exceptions.

Akoya pearls are mostly round, although each harvest produces a percentage of baroque and Keshi pearls, which have the intense luster common in Akoya, but an irregular shape and appearance.

 Akoya pearls, unless they are treated with dyes, are neutral colors and tones. Most pearls range from white to gray, with secondary pink, green, or silver tones. Occasionally, some appear in a silvery gray with blue or pink hues, but these colors are extremely rare.

Black Akoya pearls can also be found, thanks to cobalt-60 radiation treatment or an organic dye. However, if what you are looking for is dark pearls, we recommend the pearls Tahitian, which are the only naturally dark pearls.

The history of Akoya pearls is, in short, the history of cultured pearls, since they were the first pearls successfully cultivated at the beginning of the 20th century.

If there is a country and a person to whom we owe the invention and promotion of pearl cultivation, they are Japan and Kokichi Mikimoto.

Before Mikimoto, in China, they managed to cultivate what are known as Mabe pearls or half-pearls in Freshwater mussels, so the first thing Mikimoto tried was to imitate that process, but with the saltwater Akoya oyster. He tried in 1890 with 1,000 oysters and in 1891 with 5,000; both experiments were a failure. What was the problem? The nuclei he was using. So in 1893 he decided to use only mother-of-pearl nuclei. Mother-of-pearl is composed of nacre, which is the same substance pearls are made of. This time the experiment was a success, and Mikimoto managed to cultivate the first Akoya half-pearls, or Akoya Mabe.

However, Mikimoto did not stop there; his goal was to cultivate round pearls. After several experiments, in 1905 Mikimoto finally succeeded after placing the nucleus surrounded by a bit of tissue from another donor mollusk inside the body of the oyster instead of in the mantle.

In 1908 he was granted the patent for the first and only method of cultivating round pearls in history.

Akoya pearl strand with its characteristic mirror-like luster.

 

By 1916, Mikimoto was already cultivating Akoya pearls in a standardized way, opening several farms in different locations.

The success of Mikimoto's pearls was so great that they became a symbol of Japanese pride. However, outside Japan the world remained unaware of this discovery and continued to focus on the trade in natural pearls. The major natural pearl dealers did not like Mikimoto's discovery and even took him to court because, according to them, it was an imitation since it was the result of human intervention. However, the resistance did not last long, and in 1926, at the first international jewelry congress, the name "cultured pearl" was recognized and adopted. Since then, all pearls produced with human intervention are called that.

By 1938, Mikimoto already had stores all over the world and more than 350 farms that produced nearly 10 million pearls per harvest. The popularity of pearls kept growing, but one event shook the industry and the whole world: the Second World War.

After World War II, much of Mikimoto's industry was devastated and production dropped from almost 10 million in 1938 to barely 400,000 in 1946. However, the American forces occupying Japan began to show interest and requested that pearl production resume, on the condition that they would be sold only to the American Central Supply Office. Many American soldiers returned to the United States with Akoya pearl necklaces, and the popularity of pearls began to grow again.

Mikimoto died in 1954 at the age of 96; according to him, his longevity was helped by swallowing one pearl a day for much of his old age.

After his death, the industry continued to develop, reaching more than 4,500 farms in Japan in 1961.

From 1961 to today, the industry has undergone many changes, and the popularity of other types of pearls, such as Freshwater pearls, has had an impact; nevertheless, Akoya pearls remain the quintessential medium-sized round pearl.