The most amazing pearl, like a small, flaming sun, is a rare gift from the South Seas. If ordinary pearls resemble the light of the stars and the moon, thanks to their mother-of-pearl radiance, then the Melo-Melo pearl is blinding with its sudden fire!
Mother-of-pearl and non-pearl pearls
Pearls are unique in that they come out of the shell perfect, without requiring polishing or carving, like stones and minerals.
There are two substances that form pearls:
- Mother-of-pearl pearls are formed from a lustrous mother-of-pearl material called aragonite.
- The other type, the non-mother-of-pearl, is made from a harder, duller material called calcite.
However, when the two substrates are mixed, a really interesting pearl can result. These are the so-called "fire pearls", which show fascinating patterns of brilliant mother-of-pearl, reminiscent of gaseous nebulae in space, a delicate pattern of the iris and, of course, branched flashes of flame.
Melo Melo pearls are natural, non-nacreous calcareous nodules or masses of minerals produced by a marine gastropod species known as the Volutidae - a large sea snail dubbed melo-melo.
Melo Melo is found in the South China Sea and west of the Andaman Sea off the coast of Burma.
interest in pearls Melo emerged in the late 1990s. There was a lot of talk back then about a series of unusual bright orange pearls kept in a box marked with the name of the Vietnamese imperial family. These unusual spheres, some the size of a quail's egg, were a gorgeous orange.
Since then, such beads have become more frequent "guests" at auctions, and now several dozen a year appear on the market. Fishermen's passion escalated due to the cost of pearls Melo.
Thus, at a Christie's auction in Hong Kong in 1999, a Melo pearl measuring 23 by 19,35 mm had a price range of $30 to $000.
Gallery with unique jewelry with Melo pearls
Gallery with melo light yellow pearls:
It has been argued that possession of Melo pearls was the privilege of emperors in both China and Vietnam, and that these pearls are none other than the famous fire pearl chased by dragons in Chinese art.
Melo Pearl Collection
Melo's largest known pearl weighs 412 carats, nearly the size of a golf ball.
In 2008, the GIA laboratory in Bangkok analyzed a 390-carat pearl.
The collection of Qatar has a very beautiful pearl, 45 carats in size and 18 mm in diameter. Another gem Melo in the collection belongs to the same species and has dimensions of 11 mm. These two pearls have a light color fading into color cappuccino.
The rarity of "solar" pearls
Pearl Melo rare, and probably less than a thousand beautiful pearls in circulation.
Few jewelers include them in their jewelry. Chopard and Bogosyan made them famous in Switzerland. The master craftsman of these exceptional pearls is the Munich-based designer Stefan Hemmerle.
