Word: kokichi
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...pearl market changed in the early 1890s, however, when Japan's Kokichi Mikimoto first successfully cultured pearls, artificially mimicking the natural process and allowing pearls for the first time to be matched for necklaces. A century later, Chinese farmers have further perfected this technique, yielding more than 1,500 tons of freshwater pearls last year, or 95% of the world's pearl production. "Today, the quality of Chinese cultured pearls matches some of the best natural pearls ever found," says Hong Kong gemologist Henry Cheng...
Once pearls were considered far more valuable than diamonds, since only 1 in 10,000 oysters may contain a round natural pearl. In Roman times, pearls were so sought after and expensive that Julius Caesar barred women below a certain rank from wearing them. It wasn't until Kokichi Mikimoto, founder of Mikimoto pearls, successfully cultured pearls in the early 1900s that they could be easily matched and made into necklaces (before that, it could take up to 10 years to find enough matching pearls to make a strand). It was Coco Chanel who exploited the discovery of cultured pearls...