A Rare and Natural Beauty

Pearls have been prized as premier examples of beauty and wealth from the beginning of recorded history and probably before. Originally, only naturally occurring pearls existed and were only available to the royalty and aristocrats of the world.

Even in modern times, the occurrence of truly natural pearls is an extreme rarity. Only handfuls of jewelry-grade natural pearls are produced annually compared to the literal tons of diamonds available on the market.

The Cultured Pearl

In 1893, the modern cultured pearl industry began with the development of mabe (hemispherical) pearl culturing techniques in Toba City, Mie, Japan. In 1908, a scientist named Tokichi Nishikawa developed and patented a technique to culture perfectly round pearls using the Japanese Akoya.

Masato’s Akoya Pearl Culturing Process

Today, the Akoya pearl culturing process is very similar to the original process at the turn of the Twentieth Century. Spheres, or nuclei, are made from the shells of fresh water mollusks native to the Mississippi and other rivers in the Southeast U.S. Along with a small piece of mantle from a donor oyster, these nuclei are inserted into the living oysters. Soon the oyster surrounds this nucleus in a pearl sac and begins to coat it with a lustrous coating known as nacre.

The best quality pearls require precise placement of the nuclei; all Masato pearls are cultured with this precision.

The culturing timeline of pearls goes through seven distinct periods. The seventh and final period is known as the Hama-age. At this time the pearl has been growing in the oyster from between 1 ½ to 2 years.

Beautiful Down to the Molecule

Pearls can form into one of three types of surfaces: organic layer pearls, nacreous layer pearls and prismatic layer pearls. It’s these prismatic layer pearls that are considered to be gem stone quality.

Masato makes sure to always promote the ideal conditions for culturing these prismatic layer pearls down to the molecular level.

Pearl Grading and Quality

Masato’s pearls account for only 3 to 5% of all the Akoya pearls cultured in Japan. Because of this our pearls exceed the American ranking system of A to AAA for quality.

We guarantee that our pearls will have no significant blemishes or other superficial imperfections. While all pearls, being natural stones, have some slight surface variations, Masato pearls come the closest to perfection available in the market today.

We also guarantee that no dyes or other artificial coloring methods are ever used on our pearls. We harvest pearls from the best cultured oyster beds in the world to find the range of styles and natural colors we offer. Customers should immediately contact Masato Pearls or their jeweler if they are dissatisfied in any way with their purchase.