On July 11th, 1893, Kokichi Mikimoto made his first cultured pearl. A cultured pearl is one that has been grown from an oyster that was seeded with a foreign object.
My first book is a biography of Kokichi Mikimoto, “The Pearl King” by Robert Eunson 1956. This is a great story about the first man who was able to commercially make cultured pearls. He changed the world of pearl sales, by making pearls much more affordable. It is a great book to read.
I also have the book “Pearls” by W.J. Dakin, published 1913. This book goes into the history of pearls. There is great information on both fresh water pearls and sea pearls, and some information on the use of the shell. The largest pearl-the Hope Pearl, weighs over three ounces.
I have two books on pearls by one author. The first is “The Story of Pearls” by Shohei Shirai, published in 1970. This is a nicely done book that explains the whole culture growing and harvesting pearls, and then processes of making into jewelry.
The second is “Pearls” by Shohei Shirai, published 1981. It has many beautiful photographs of various types of jewelry, along with some basic history and harvesting of pearls. Interestingly, it is written in four languages; English, French, Spanish, and Japanese. It was published in Japan.
I now move to to a two book set. The first is “Pearls in Pictures”, by Jo Mary McCormick, published in 1966. This book describes natural pearls, cultured pearl farming, by-products, and how to care for pearls. The cover shows pearl sorting by size.
The matching book is “Diamonds in Pictures” by Gearge Switzer, published 1967. While this is not about pearls, this book follows the same guidelines as the pearl book but with diamonds. It explains diamond hunting and mining, how to cut diamonds, along with pictures of famous diamonds. You will see that I may have to use this book a little later.
The next book on pearls is a very interesting read. “The Pearl Trader” by Louis Kornitzer, published 1937, is an amazing autobiography. Kornitzer was a rare pearl trader from England. This tells of his aventures around the world as he tracked down natural pearls, and many times bought directly from native pearl divers. This book goes into all kinds of pearl lore, and the ‘nuts and bolts’ of how these pearls are formed and found one by one, not grown in a pearl farm like cultured pearls. He went into several dangerous areas, and this makes for a very interesting true story read.
My last story is when my wife and I celebrated our 30th anniversary. I bought the book “Pearls of Shakespeare” published in 1860. It is in beautiful condition, and I made a bookmark with a pearl ring at the end. It was marked to a passage by Shakespeare:
“Win her with gifts, if she respect not words; Dumb jewels often, in their silent kind,
more than quick words, do move a woman’s mind.”
I knew that she probably would allow me to keep the book in the library, so I also gave her a small trinket box in the shape of an oyster-with an actual mother-of-pearl lid. When she opened the shell, there were 30 un-drilled pearls, one for each year of our marriage.
Pearls represent beauty, sincerity, and hope. When I gave my wife these pearls, I believed I was lucky then to be married to such a beauty (inside and out). Now at forty four years married, I am even luckier to have her. I should perhaps plan now for a fiftieth anniversary diamond.
She does like diamonds…
Librarytomes 