The world of Freshwater pearls is the fastest evolving of all cultured pearl types. Be it a Freshwater pearl necklace, pearl bracelet or pearl earrings, the options for freshwater pearls is endless. New shapes, colors, sizes and textures are being introduced at breakneck speeds, with new varieties making debuts yearly at the international pearl shows.

This guide to A-AAAA Freshwater Pearl Grading is going to deal primarily with the classic near round to round white Freshwater pearl, which is the most popular of all Freshwater pearl varieties available today. Read the whole article, or use the links featured in the Table of Contents to skip ahead directly to parts that concern you.

Freshwater pearls are unique in that they are the ONLY  tissue-nucleated cultured pearl in the world. Why is this an awesome, wonderful thing? Here's just a few reasons off the top of our heads:

Cultured Freshwater pearls are grown in the freshwater pearl mussel, Hyriopsis cumingii (along with other hybridized mussels indigenous to the area) in freshwater lakes and man-made aquaculture ponds that also contain fish, shellfish and rice to support the small pearl farmer collectives in China.

The Freshwater pearl mussels are nucleated with 1.0mm squares of donor mantle tissue within the body of the mussel.

Cultured Freshwater pearls are grown in the freshwater pearl mussel, Hyriopsis cumingii (along with other hybridized mussels indigenous to the area) in freshwater lakes and man-made aquaculture ponds that also contain fish, shellfish and rice to support the small pearl farmer collectives in China.

The Freshwater pearl mussels are nucleated with 1.0mm squares of donor mantle tissue within the body of the mussel.

The tissue squares are seeded throughout the soft body of the mussel, up to 25 times on each side of the shell, creating a potential harvest of up to 50 pearls per mussel.

The sheer volume of cultured Freshwater pearls dwarfs that of any other cultured pearl type many times over each year, contributing to their lower price points.

Solid-nacre pearls have no mother of pearl bead nucleus to give the mussel a perfectly round ‘template’ to form nacre over, so the majority of Freshwater pearl harvests contain semi-baroque and baroque pearls (see the image above for an example of the variety of shapes, sizes and colors a single mussel can produce!).

True round-shaped Freshwater pearls, while a major goal of pearl farmers everywhere, remain a tiny percentage of each yearly harvest – less than 3% - and are a MAJOR factor in determining a pearl’s overall quality grade.

The primary difference between the AAA Quality and AAAA Quality Freshwater pearl necklace is one of SHAPE.

It’s the most visible and easily quantified value attribute between the two qualities; the next two differences will be that of Luster and Surface Quality.

To learn more about all the pearl value factors, visit: The Ultimate Guide to Pearl Grading

Our AAAA Quality Freshwater pearlsare going to have sharper, brighter luster and less blemishing, between 1-5% of the pearls' surfaces on the strand overall will feature some type of inclusion (usually chalky spots or thin ridges where organic material has accumulated).

Most importantly, the shape will be round to the eye from a distance of 6-inches approximately, and up close inspection (less than 6-inches) will reveal nearly perfectly round pearl shapes.

Typically our AAAA / Elite Collection Freshwater pearls are used for earrings, rings and pendants because their quality is top-tier.

We bid a little more to have them set aside, fully-drilled and matched into 18-inch hanks for us, so we can create Freshwater pearl jewelry that is above and beyond what you’ll normally see in brick and mortar jewelry stores.

Their blemish rate is less than 1-3% overall, luster will be very bright, with crisp, defined edges of reflected light in the pearls’ surfaces, and you should be able to make out some detailed facial features reflected in the surfaces as well. They are the best of the best that Freshwater pearls have to offer, at half the price of an equivalent Akoya pearl.

Our AAA Quality Freshwater pearls  will have luster that is nearly comparable just not quite as crisp and the blemish rate will be between 5-10%; the shape will be mostly eye-round from a distance of 1-3 feet.

Upon close inspection (less than 6 inches), you’ll begin to notice a slight off-round shape to some of the pearls, however this is not the case for all the pearls in the strand.

You can think of pearl inclusions as a built-in certificate of authenticity – they’re a natural left over of the creation process. You’ll never see inclusions like this, or the subtle variations that make a pearl a true one of a kind with man-made synthetic beads.

The majority of Freshwater pearls’ inclusions will match the pearl’s natural color and/or are colorless, blending with the pearl surface making them nearly invisible to the casual observer.

Keep in mind that A-AAAA Freshwater pearl grading benchmarks count for the individual pearl, as well as the entire strand overall, so the 10% allowable blemish rate on even our lowest quality Freshwater pearl strand will still keep you squarely in a nice, high quality strand of pearls.

When choosing fine Freshwater pearls, the biggest, most important considerations to keep in mind are consistency of shape, and a fine, bright luster.