[
  {
    "id": "oldest-pearl-ornaments",
    "date": "About 8,500 years ago",
    "precision": "approximate",
    "sortKey": -6500,
    "title": "The oldest known pearl ornaments",
    "summary": "In 2019, archaeologists reported pearls used as adornments in Baja California Sur, Mexico, radiocarbon dated to 8,500 years old, the oldest reported so far.",
    "place": "Baja California Sur, Mexico",
    "disputed": false,
    "sources": [
      "cibjo-pearl-guide-2025"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "china-buddha-blister-pearls",
    "date": "13th century",
    "precision": "century",
    "sortKey": 1200,
    "title": "Chinese farmers grow blister pearls on small Buddha figures",
    "summary": "By the 13th century, small lead figures of Buddha were being fixed inside freshwater mussels (Cristaria plicata), which coated them in nacre. An FAO report from 1984 dates the practice to more than 2,000 years ago.",
    "place": "China",
    "disputed": true,
    "sources": [
      "gg-2001-chinese-freshwater",
      "fao-1991-pearl-oyster-farming",
      "fao-1984-bangladesh-pearl"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "columbus-pearls",
    "date": "1498",
    "precision": "year",
    "sortKey": 1498,
    "title": "Columbus meets people wearing pearls on his third voyage",
    "summary": "On his third (1498) and fourth (1502) voyages, Christopher Columbus met people adorned with natural pearls. The pearl sources he found, in present-day Venezuela and Panama, raised demand in Europe.",
    "place": "Present-day Venezuela",
    "disputed": false,
    "sources": [
      "gia-pearl-history-lore",
      "cibjo-pearl-book-2026"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "charles-i-pearl-earring",
    "date": "1649",
    "precision": "year",
    "sortKey": 1649,
    "title": "Charles I wears a pearl-drop earring to his execution",
    "summary": "The V&A showed the pearl-drop earring that Charles I of England wore at his execution in 1649 in its 2013 Pearls exhibition.",
    "place": "London",
    "disputed": false,
    "sources": [
      "vam-pearls-2013"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "dagmar-necklace",
    "date": "1863",
    "precision": "year",
    "sortKey": 1863,
    "title": "Princess Alexandra receives the Dagmar necklace",
    "summary": "The pearl necklace known as the Dagmar necklace was a gift to Princess Alexandra when she married the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, in 1863.",
    "place": "London",
    "disputed": false,
    "sources": [
      "vam-pearls-2013"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "mikimoto-first-cultured-pearls",
    "date": "1893",
    "precision": "year",
    "sortKey": 1893,
    "title": "Kokichi Mikimoto grows his first cultured pearls",
    "summary": "Kokichi Mikimoto successfully cultured pearls in Japan. They were hemispherical (half) pearls.",
    "place": "Japan",
    "disputed": false,
    "sources": [
      "gia-pearl",
      "cibjo-rrg-pearls-2021"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "round-pearl-technique",
    "date": "1907",
    "precision": "year",
    "sortKey": 1907,
    "title": "The technique for whole, round cultured pearls is developed",
    "summary": "CIBJO dates the technique for spherical, whole cultured pearls to 1907. A 2007 Gems & Gemology review credits Tatsuhei Mise and Tokichi Nishikawa with the basic method still used for bead-cultured pearls, a bead inserted into the gonad with a piece of mantle tissue.",
    "place": "Japan",
    "disputed": false,
    "sources": [
      "cibjo-rrg-pearls-2021",
      "gg-2007-cultured-pearl-industry"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "cartier-fifth-avenue",
    "date": "1917",
    "precision": "year",
    "sortKey": 1917,
    "title": "Pierre Cartier trades a double strand of natural pearls for a mansion",
    "summary": "Pierre Cartier traded a double strand of natural pearls for a mansion at 653 Fifth Avenue in New York City.",
    "place": "New York City",
    "disputed": false,
    "sources": [
      "gia-pearl"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "mitsubishi-philippines-farm",
    "date": "1917",
    "precision": "year",
    "sortKey": 1917,
    "title": "A Japanese company starts culturing pearls in the Philippines",
    "summary": "Shortly after Mikimoto began mass-producing Akoya cultured pearls with the Mise-Nishikawa method, the Mitsubishi company of Japan set up a Pinctada maxima pearl farm in the Philippines. Others followed, and several survived until the Second World War.",
    "place": "The Philippines",
    "disputed": false,
    "sources": [
      "gg-2007-cultured-pearl-industry"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "london-cultured-pearl-alarm",
    "date": "1921-05",
    "precision": "month",
    "sortKey": 1921,
    "title": "Round Japanese cultured pearls surprise the London trade",
    "summary": "A London evening paper reported that spherical Japanese pearls with mother-of-pearl beads at their centers had reached the London market and deceived experienced dealers in Hatton Garden.",
    "place": "London",
    "disputed": false,
    "sources": [
      "jameson-1921-nature"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "pearl-testing-laboratories",
    "date": "1925",
    "precision": "year",
    "sortKey": 1925,
    "title": "Gem testing laboratories open to separate natural from cultured pearls",
    "summary": "The London Chamber of Commerce opened a gem testing laboratory in 1925, followed by the Laboratoire Français de Gemmologie in 1929 and GIA in 1931. All three first focused on telling natural pearls from cultured ones.",
    "place": "London",
    "disputed": false,
    "sources": [
      "gg-2024-xray-imaging"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "japan-pearl-association",
    "date": "1928-09",
    "precision": "month",
    "sortKey": 1928,
    "title": "Japan's pearl producers begin inspecting their own pearls",
    "summary": "The Dainippon (Japan) Pearl Association required its members to submit all their cultured pearls for inspection, and pearls with too little nacre, poor luster or color, or a very deformed shape were banned from sale.",
    "place": "Japan",
    "disputed": false,
    "sources": [
      "cibjo-pearl-guide-2025"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "gulf-natural-pearl-decline",
    "date": "1930s",
    "precision": "decade",
    "sortKey": 1930,
    "title": "The Gulf's natural pearl trade contracts",
    "summary": "From 1850 to 1930 the Persian Gulf supplied perhaps 70–80% of the world's natural pearls. From the 1930s the natural pearl market contracted, because of the Great Depression, the discovery of oil in the Gulf and the arrival of cultured pearls.",
    "place": "Persian Gulf",
    "disputed": false,
    "sources": [
      "gg-2025-converge",
      "cibjo-rrg-pearls-2021"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "japan-pearl-export-inspection",
    "date": "1952-03",
    "precision": "month",
    "sortKey": 1952,
    "title": "Japan begins government inspection of pearl exports",
    "summary": "Under the Pearl Cultivation Law, pearls could be exported only after a government inspection, at offices in Tokyo and Kobe, had graded them. The inspections ran for 46 years, until the law was abolished at the end of 1998.",
    "place": "Japan",
    "disputed": false,
    "sources": [
      "cibjo-pearl-guide-2025"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "kuri-bay-south-sea-culture",
    "date": "1954",
    "precision": "year",
    "sortKey": 1954,
    "title": "South Sea pearl culturing begins at Kuri Bay, Western Australia",
    "summary": "Pearls Pty., a venture of Tokuichi Kuribayashi and Alan Gerdau, began culturing pearls in Pinctada maxima at what is now Kuri Bay. A larger bead method let the farm harvest after only 18 months.",
    "place": "Western Australia",
    "disputed": false,
    "sources": [
      "gg-2007-cultured-pearl-industry"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "monroe-pearl-necklace",
    "date": "1954",
    "precision": "year",
    "sortKey": 1954,
    "title": "Joe DiMaggio gives Marilyn Monroe a cultured pearl necklace",
    "summary": "The necklace of cultured pearls that Joe DiMaggio gave Marilyn Monroe in 1954 was among the jewels in the V&A's 2013 Pearls exhibition.",
    "place": "United States",
    "disputed": false,
    "sources": [
      "vam-pearls-2013"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "bora-bora-black-pearl-trial",
    "date": "1961",
    "precision": "year",
    "sortKey": 1961,
    "title": "French Polynesia runs its first black pearl culturing trial",
    "summary": "The government's Fisheries Service ran a trial on Bora Bora with two Japanese firms. It produced good black pearls but had no commercial follow-up; small farms later formed the GIE Poe Rava Nui cooperative, in 1979.",
    "place": "Bora Bora, French Polynesia",
    "disputed": false,
    "sources": [
      "gg-2007-cultured-pearl-industry"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "japan-production-peak",
    "date": "1966",
    "precision": "year",
    "sortKey": 1966,
    "title": "Japan's cultured pearl production peaks",
    "summary": "Official Japanese production reached an all-time high of 39,522 kan, or 148.2 tonnes, though some estimates put it far higher, at about 65,000 kan. Sales and production then fell sharply at the end of the decade.",
    "place": "Japan",
    "disputed": false,
    "sources": [
      "gg-2007-cultured-pearl-industry"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "la-peregrina-taylor",
    "date": "1969",
    "precision": "year",
    "sortKey": 1969,
    "title": "Richard Burton gives La Peregrina to Elizabeth Taylor",
    "summary": "La Peregrina, a drop-shaped natural pearl found in the Gulf of Panama in the 1500s and long owned by European royalty, passed from Richard Burton to Elizabeth Taylor.",
    "place": "United States",
    "disputed": false,
    "sources": [
      "gia-june-birthstones"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "la-peregrina-sale",
    "date": "2011",
    "precision": "year",
    "sortKey": 2011,
    "title": "La Peregrina sells at auction for $11.8 million",
    "summary": "Christie's New York auctioned the Cartier necklace containing La Peregrina for $11.8 million.",
    "place": "New York City",
    "disputed": false,
    "sources": [
      "gia-june-birthstones"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "french-polynesia-pearl-law",
    "date": "2017-07-18",
    "precision": "day",
    "sortKey": 2017,
    "title": "French Polynesia's pearl law ends the mandatory nacre check",
    "summary": "Loi du pays 2017-16 ended the government's mandatory quality control, which had required at least 0.8 mm of nacre since 2005, and made a nacre evaluation voluntary. It defines the Tahitian cultured pearl as naturally colored and untreated.",
    "place": "French Polynesia",
    "disputed": false,
    "sources": [
      "pf-loi-2017-16",
      "pf-ctc-2021-perliculture"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "marie-antoinette-pendant-sale",
    "date": "2018-11-14",
    "precision": "day",
    "sortKey": 2018,
    "title": "Marie Antoinette's natural pearl pendant sets an auction record",
    "summary": "At Sotheby's in Geneva, Marie Antoinette's 18th-century natural pearl and diamond pendant sold for CHF 36,427,000, a new auction record for a natural pearl.",
    "place": "Geneva",
    "disputed": false,
    "sources": [
      "sothebys-2018-marie-antoinette"
    ]
  }
]