Mabe Blister Pearl

A mabe pearl is a half-spherical cultured pearl grown on the inside shell of a mollusk (the pearl oyster Pteria penguin), as opposed to inside a mollusk's body. Mabe pearls do not form naturally, rather, their growth is artificially induced. The pearl farmer attaches a plastic hemisphere onto the inside of a mollusk's shell until its nucleus is covered with a sufficient amount of nacre (see here). Then the pearl is cut away from the inner shell, and the cavity filled with a substance such as epoxy resin and backed by a mother-of-pearl plate. Mabe pearls are sometimes referred to as blister pearls.

The term Mabe is possibly a word used in the Ryukyuan Japanese (Amami) dialect.

Pearls are grown when faced with a foreign body, a small parasite or a grain of sand, and the secreting organ of the shell (the mantle) isolates the intruder by forming a layer of mother-of-pearl. It was by observing this reaction that the Japanese perfected their pearl-culture techniques which are now used throughout French Polynesia. The probably most valuable pearls (among the fully round ones) are the salt-water (ocean) Akoya pearls. Like everything valuable, pearls have also been falsified and tons of so-called "costume jewelry pearls" are circulating around. One doesn't have to have a truckload of these lovely pearls, but what you buy or receive as gift, should be the real thing. Although many people believe that freshwater (FW) pearls are not as highly valued as salt-water pearls, there are very close-to-perfect round highly valued freshwater pearl items with thick nacre and excellent luster available which may, under circumstances, outperform salt water pearls regarding the price.