Nature is unpredictable and fascinating, being able to create extraordinary things like pearls. But not every pearl is like we usually immagine, white, ethereal and covered with a thick layer of mother-of-pearl.

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 concrection that can change from deep brown to orange with a 8 to 40 mm in diameter.

Like all the other pearls, this type comes to life in a spontaneous and casual way as a natural defense reaction toward a foreign body which provokes an irritation to the mussel.

Beside the structure and color, the most important detail, which distinguishes these pearls from the other types, is the mussel that produces them: it isn’t an oyster, but rather a particular specimen of snail, called Melo Melo, that lives mainly in the seas of Southern China.

Its rarity is well known as to generate several legends on these Vietnamise “flaming pearls”, and their finding is once more left to the case during the fishing of this snail since, like the Conch pearls, its cultivationis still impossible due to still unknow creation processes.

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