Are the small pearls in vintage akoya strands bead nucleated?

[Charlotta]

I have a fair amount of old akoya necklaces, mostly ones I bought broken and then fixed. Whenever I restring these I am always amazed at the amount of really small akoyas, around 3 mm. In some of my necklaces there are not many bigger pearls, they are just very graduated. Most of them wellmatched and with beautiful luster. Now to my question, are these small pearls bead nucleated? I have always heard that you could only get one pearl of an akoya oyster. Why would they then "waste" an oyster making a small pearl when they could make a larger more valuable one?

 

[Pearl Dreams]

They are bead nucleated, and in the case of the very small pearls, they put 2 beads into the one oyster gonad. There was a post last year about this; if I find it I'll post the link.

 

[Pearl Dreams]

I found the thread where this was discussed but it isn't just 2 beads-- rather, 3-5 bead nucleuses!

https://www.pearl-guide.com/forum/s...on-information&p=186677&viewfull=1#post186677

 

[Charlotta]

Thank you Pearl Dreams

 

[BWeaves]

In the old, vintage akoya necklaces, the larger pearls were harder to make and therefore more expensive. The classic vintage necklace had a few larger akoya pearls at the front, and graduated to lots of small, inexpensive akoya pearls in the back. But all akoyas were (and still are) bead nucleated.

 

[Charlotta]

It must have been small beads.