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

Until the late 1990s, Akoya pearls were the most popular pearls in the world. With the improvement in quality of freshwater pearls and their more affordable price, they began to gain ground, but even today, Akoya pearls remain 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 staple that can be used in countless situations and never goes out of style. 

Discover all our designs with Akoya pearls here

How valuable are Akoya pearls?

Unlike the mussels that create freshwater pearls, the oysters of perlas Akoya they rarely produce more than two pearls per harvest. Oysters are included in a round mother of pearl core and a small piece of tissue from the mantle of a donor oysterThis 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 a higher value.

Compared to the australian or the tahiti, Akoya pearls are the most affordable of these three types of saltwater pearls, due to the larger size and scarcity of the first. However, as we mentioned in this other article, the value not only depends on the origin, but also on the quality of the pearls in question, so this is merely indicative.

In Secret & YouWe only offer very high-quality Akoya pearls, personally selected by our pearl expert. Since Akoya pearls are inherently a more exclusive product, we believe it makes no sense to offer our customers lower quality Akoya pearls when they could instead acquire our freshwater pearls, which are of excellent quality and price and surpass the beauty of those inferior quality Akoya pearls.

An interesting fact is that the Akoya Oyster “Pinctada Fucata Martensii” is the smallest oyster cultivated to produce pearls 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 exceptions of 10-11 mm.

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

 Akoya pearls, unless treated with dyes, are of neutral colors and tonesMost pearls range in color from white to gray, with secondary tones of pink, green, or silver. Occasionally, some appear in a silver-gray with blue or pink undertones, but these colors are extremely rare.

You can also find black Akoya pearls, thanks to radiation treatment with cobalt-60 or with an organic dye. However, if you are looking for dark pearls, we recommend the pearls Tahiti, which are the only naturally occurring dark pearls.

The history of Akoya pearls is, ultimately, the history of cultured pearls, as they were the first pearls to be successfully cultivated in the early 20th century.

If there is a country and a person to whom we owe the invention and promotion of pearl cultivation, it is 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 experimented 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 made up of nacre, which is the same substance that pearls are made of. This time the experiment was a success, and Mikimoto managed to cultivate the first Akoya half pearls or Mabe Akoya.

However, Mikimoto did not stop there; his goal was to cultivate round pearls. After several experiments, in 1905 Mikimoto finally succeeded by 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, the patent was granted for the first and only method of cultivating round pearls in history.

Akoya pearl necklace with its characteristic mirror-like shine.

 

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

The success of Mikimoto pearls was so great that they became a symbol of Japanese pride. However, outside of Japan, the world remained unaware of this discovery and continued to focus on the trade of natural pearls. The major traders of natural pearls were not pleased with Mikimoto's discovery and even took him to court, as they claimed it was an imitation due to human intervention. However, the resistance was short-lived, and in 1926, at the first international jewelry congress, the term "cultured pearl" was recognized and adopted. Since then, all pearls produced with human intervention are referred to as such.

By 1938, Mikimoto already had stores around the world and owned more than 350 farms that produced nearly 10 million pearls per harvest. The popularity of pearls continued to grow, but one event shook the industry and the entire world: World War II.

After World War II, much of Mikimoto's industry was devastated, and production dropped from nearly 10 million in 1938 to just 400,000 in 1946. However, the American forces that occupied Japan began to show interest and requested that pearls be produced again, with the condition that they would only be sold 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 favored by swallowing a pearl a day for much of his old age.

After its death, the industry continued to develop, reaching over 4,500 farms in Japan by 1961.

Since 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; however, Akoya pearls remain the quintessential round medium-sized pearl.