Myth: "Chep Pearls are fake." Truth: The price of a pearl is determined by six important parameters
All Regalia pearls are cultured, which means they are created at an oyster farm under controlled conditions.
Natural pearls are formed by nature, more-or-less by chance, when a foreign object (usually sand) penetrates the shell and the pearl is made as part of its healing process. With cultured pearls, the foreign object is inserted deliberately, and the oysters are kept for years in a farm, where they grow the pearls.
A pearl's value is determined by its
1. Cleanliness: the fewer amounts of marks, pots or lines, the better. Pearls with the smoothest surfaces are the highest-quality, most sought-after pearls.
2. Luster: how shiny the pearl is
3. Shape: the rounder the pearl is, the more expensive it will be.
Other parameters that affect a pearl’s value is color (typical pearl colors are white, cream, yellow, pink, silver, or black), size and nacre thickness, meaning the thickness of the substance that mollusks secrete around the foreign object.
Cultured pearls can be farmed using two very different groups of bivalve mollusk: the freshwater river mussels, and the saltwater pearl oysters. According to the International gem society, the type of water does not effect the value of a pearl.
A pearl is graded by each of the six parameters above and the value of a pearl can range between $10 to $100,000 per pearl.
So if you see that some pearls in our collection are more expensive than others, it does not mean that “the cheaper ones” are fake (those are often called ‘simulated’ or ‘imitation’). We make sure to state what type of pearl you are buying so if you read the word "Cultured" this means you are getting GENUINE pearls regardless of their value.