Interesting Historical Facts About Cultured Freshwater Pearls

Cultured freshwater pearls are one of the most innovative and intriguing techniques invented by mankind till date. This technique was first used in Japan. As the process of natural freshwater mussels to turn into pearls was extremely slow and improbable, thus, Japanese scientists invented a procedure which could incite the pearl formation in a mussel through human manipulation. In the 1930s, Japanese experimented with fresh water mussels on the idea of generating pearl growth through artificial stimulus and they succeeded.

Cultured fresh water pearls were first produced through the mussels present in Lake Biwa which flows near Kyoto. Cultured pearls were found to be highly lustrous and radiant with unseen beauty. Their brilliance gave a tough competition to the naturally formed pearls. Thus, it was considered a great success. These pearls were then named as Biwa Pearls owing to their origin in the Biwa Lake. Soon these pearls hit the commercial market and were being sold like hot cakes because of their unbeatable shine and less price as compared to natural pearls.

The cultured freshwater pearls from Biwa, popularly known as Biwas, became so successful that all cultured pearls irrespective of their country of origin were regarded as Biwa pearls. Later a legal action was taken by the U.S. government and all references to Biwa pearls were banned unless the pearls actually belonged to Biwa. After that, Biwa cultured pearls and ">sterling silver wire became even more popular and their large scale production started in the Biwa Lake and it became a hub for cultured freshwater pearls supplying its products to the international market.

The production of these pearls continued till 1973 in Biwa. However, later it was discovered that the excessive amount of harvesting has resulted into many ill effects as well such as extinction of mollusks, water pollution. The pearls farms were finding it difficult to survive due to the excessive human interference. As a consequence, Biwa Lake was no longer able to produce cultured freshwater pearls. This affected the Japan’s economy severely.

As there was no other lake or river in the country that could produce freshwater pearls, thus, Japan had to face huge financial crisis. Their workforce and expertise had started to waist because of their inability to produce cultured freshwater pearls. This gave birth to a new successor in the game, China. As China had also been in the news for its apparent pearl production, it seized the opportunity.

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