Conch pearls, Quahog pearls and Melo Melo pearls

We seem to have missed another important perfectly spherical, yellowish-orange melo pearl, weighing 195.82 carats, suspended as a pendant by a diamond-set spiral mount from a fine-link diamond neckchain, 45.1 cm. long, that appeared at the Christie's inaugural Contemporary Jewels & Watches Sale, held in Dubai on January 31, 2007, and made quite an impression by registering a sale price of US $251,200, above the pre-sale estimate of US $150,000 to $200,000.
The following is a thumbnail of the melo pearl with the diamond set spiral mount :-

Wow ! the intense orange papaya-colored Melo pearl looks stunningly beautiful !! Thanks Peter for posting the image of this rare Melo pearl and sharing your excitement with us.

The color of this intense orange, papaya-colored Melo pearl seems to surpass the yellow color of the 224-carat Melo pearl, the second largest Melo pearl on record, that set a world record price for a Melo pearl, US $722,500 at the Christie's Dubai auction on October 27, 2010,

There are some types of pearls, notably the melo melo pearl and the conch pearl, that aren’t really pearls at all, but rather calcareous concretions.

I remember an article several years ago about the collection of melo pearls owned by the royal familys of Vietnam. They were especially treasured there, unfortunately I do not remember the entire article but do remember it gave some interesting beliefs and history on them. I belonged to the Houston shell club at the time so it was probably in a presentation or in a chonchology magazine. The melo grows to large size but it takes years to do so and being a large animal and inhabiting shallow water it is vunerable to over fishing and unfortunately I doubt that the pearls are taken without killing the animal. They are sometimes referred to as bailer shells because their shape and size made them ideal for bailing water from canoes. The shells are used in jewelry and to make wealth items in many oceanic societys as well.

I haven't seen abalone pearls from the family Haliotidae mentioned. There are a wide range of types around the world so there should be quite a few variations. The largest known is a pearl from the red abalone found in northern California the largest shell I have seen was 18 inches at its widest measurement. I found pictures and information as the pearl is in the guiness world records but could not copy them to add here. The pearl is 4 inches long and 2.25 in. wide and almost 300 carats. The rainbow of colors produced by the abalone should be unique among all pearls and is very rare.

The other pearl not mentioned comes in purple, lavender or pink. It comes from the fresh water muscle Cyrtonaias Tampicoensis and is found mostly in rivers in northern Texas especially around San Angelo. It is often called Concho river pearl and was worn as jewelry and used in trade by native Americans before European contact. The Spanish explorers looking for gold in 1650 along the concho ( Shell) river they discovered the pearls and harvested them for a while but could not find enough fast enough so went back to looking for gold.
There is an industry around San Angelo harvesting and marketing the shells and pearls and a state licence is required. The people who began the more recent interest in these were Bart Mann and Jack Morgan who made jewelry and opened a store featuring these pearls. The largest example was perfectly round and a uniform pink 13mm. in diameter. My favorite jewelry they made were small pearls mounted in gold forming an ear of corn.

Thanks Barry for your contribution, on Melo pearls, Abalone pearls and the rare Concho river pearls derived from the fresh water mussel Cyrtonaias Tampicoensis. Your contribution has certainly enriched our knowledge on pearls.

Conch pearls were first discovered only after Columbus had discovered the new world. The reason behind this is due to the fact that the marine gastropod responsible for producing these pearls known as Strombus gigas or the conch is found only in the West Indies where Christopher Columbus started his discoveries. Looking back on the early Spanish conquistadors descriptions of large pink pearls that they found on the native American tribesmen in Florida, it is safe to assume they were referring to conch pearls. Melo pearls are found in several different species of volute or bailer shell. The most well known of these is the melo melo or Indian volute.

Melo Melo pearls are very particular pearls which, like Conch ones, don’t have an actual layer of mother-of-pearl but rather a layer of calcareous concretion that can vary from deep brown to orange with a 8 to 40 mm in diameter.