Word: mikimoto
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...Standard equipment, pearls signal affiliation with the brat set. Don't let the fakers get away with faux Mikimoto. Hint: the only way to tell is by rubbing them together...
Died. Kokichi Mikimoto, 95, onetime noodle merchant who became the world's largest producer of cultured pearls; of a kidney ailment; in Nagoya, Japan. Perfecting by trial and error a method of seeding oysters known since the 13th century (a fleck of sand or a tiny bead is forced into the oyster, which seeks to counteract the irritant by coating it with layer upon layer of pearl-making nacre), spry, fun-loving Mikimoto (who entertained his employees with feats of magic and parasol-twirling) scandalized Paris in 1913, when he first brought his quarter-price pearls to the international...
...brought disaster to Mikimoto. B-29s leveled his big Tokyo retail store, strafed his Ago Bay factory. But he still had half a million oysters in the bay, a fortune in pearls in boot boxes around his home. He set up a pill factory next to his idle plant, began grinding low-grade pearls and oyster shells into powder for an elixir (Mikimoto Pearlcalc) to give energy and long life, sold it to the Japanese Navy...
Please a G.I. The American occupation was no ill wind to Mikimoto. He began selling pearls from his hoard to G.I.s. When black-market prices soared to 30,000 yen ($2,000) for a string, U.S. authorities stepped in, ordered Mikimoto and other Japanese pearlers to sell only to the U.S. Army for sale in post exchanges. Prices now vary from 300 to 2,000 yen a string...
...Mikimoto has already sold half his stock. But necklaces sold for 8,000 yen in Tokyo have fetched 15 times that in New York, so he is saving his best strings for the time when Japan can ship abroad...