Pearls have a rich and vibrant history, dating back to ancient times when heroic divers would brave the ocean's depths to bring towards the water's surface these treasures of the deep. The pearl itself is known far and wide as the "Queen of Gems" so it's no surprise that these glowing orbs have cemented their favor with queens, kings, and royal households from the dawn of time. A look back at ancient artwork, mosaics, and also sculptures show pearls adorning necklaces, crowns, collars, earrings, and robes.

India is believed to be the home of the initial discovery of the pearl. A tribe of fish consuming peoples are believed to have stumbled across the oyster and discovered an oyster inside with the meat. This tribe praised the beauty and luster of the pearl and soon began harvesting the gems.

Pearls made their mark on the land of China as well, with lesser kings gifting pearl necklaces to kings with a lot more power as a token of good will. Typically, these pearls had been of the fresh water type and looked at with disdain due to the irregularity of the shape.

The ancient Romans and Egyptians prized pearls more than the other gemstones, possibly because of its eerie similarity to the moon. One favorite story about pearls entails the legendary Egyptian queen Cleopatra and her Roman lover Marc Antony. In an effort to convince Antony of her country's wealth and power over the Roman Empire, Cleopatra bet the erstwhile Roman she could provide essentially the most pricey banquet in history. Before a goblet of wine, she dissolved a big pearl from a pair of earrings and drank the remnants. Antony declined the matching pearl, proving her point and entering the infamous queen yet again into widespread folklore.

Pearls play a big portion within the main religions in the world. Arabian royalty loved pearls to the point they utilized the orbs to decorate the Koran, their religious text. Along with decorating the outside of the books, the Koran is filled with passages which includes pearls inside the text. Similarly, Christians included parables and text about pearls in their religious text, the Bible. In Hinduism, the god Krishna is credited with discovering pearls and presented the sea born beauty to his daughter on the day of her wedding.

As time progressed, pearl harvesting became a lucrative enterprise and fueled exploration all over the world. Following the “discovery” of pearl-laden shellfish within the New World, wealth seekers from all over the world flocked to the newfound land for its riches. Still, both fresh water pearls and salt water pearls had been symbols of riches that only the wealthiest of individuals could afford. It was not till the early 1900s that pearls became a possibility for all classes.

In 1907, the son of a Japanese noodle maker created a system for producing perfectly round pearls in a controlled environment. Kokichi Mikimoto and his wife Ume produced a pearl empire that still sets in the bar for top quality pearls to this day. The Mikimoto corporation still produces astoundingly lovely pearls currently using the practices set in location by Kokichi and Ume.

Even though Mikimoto was operating to culture high quality pearls, two more Japanese minds were also striving to have similar successes. Tokichi Nishikawa and Tatsuhei Mise had been working independently, but located comparable results and achievement in grafting irritants into the oyster's tissue to spur the production of a pearl. Soon after discovering they had been working independently toward exactly the same aim, the males joined forces to generate the Mise-Nishikawa technique. Mikimoto soon bought the rights to this method and coupled the men's creations and techniques with his own.