Pearls are born within oysters that live in the sea and in freshwater mollusks. The majority of pearls however, are gathered from oysters that call the saltwaters around the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and the coastal waters of Japan and India.
Saltwater pearls are different from freshwater pearls in their luster. This makes saltwater pearls more valuable and desirable.
Today, the majority of saltwater black pearls are bead-nucleated pearls instead of natural.
However, some saltwater black pearls are collected in the Persian Gulf. These natural pearls from the Persian Gulf tend to be:
- Very rare
- Yield is quite low and is too small to have any market value.
The most common types of saltwater black pearls are: