Pearl jewelry make great jewelry and have been used for that purpose for hundreds of years. Historians believe that the Chinese even mastered the cultivation of freshwater pearls as early as 700 years ago. A pearl necklaces appears when a single piece of sand is trapped inside a mussel or oyster. The shell tries to protect itself from the sand by coating it in layers and layers of shiny secretion. With time the layers turn into the orb that is known as a pearl.

Natural wild specimens like this are very valuable, because they are so rare. With overfishing and demand for pearls, there are fewer mussels left to produce pearls. Natural pearls may take as long as 10 years to develop.

The cultivated kind is more common. These are pearl jewelry created by design, often in freshwater. This method has been known by the Chinese for centuries, but not often seen in the West. Cultivated freshwater pearls are the most popular today as they are of high quality and affordable. Pearls can be found in all colors. The color of the pearl depends on the water in which it was grown and which kind of mussel or oyster created it. Pearls may be found in white, brown, pink, black and creamy colors. When judging the value of white pearl necklace, there are several factors to take into account.

Lustre is the combination of the inside glow and outer brilliance. The highest quality pearls will seem more solid and dense, while the lower quality pearl may seem dull and chalky. The smoothness of the surface is the second most important factor to consider. Pearls are grown organically, so they are almost never perfect, and so often have imperfections and blemishes. A high quality product will only have blemishes that are visible from up close. The shape is equally important; the roundness of the pearl is a determining factor. It's common for pearls to not be completely round. The rounder, the higher the value.

The color of the pearl is actually less important and mostly depends on the preference of the buyer.