Editing Pearl (section)

===Value of a natural pearl===
[[File:Diadème de limpératrice Eugénie (musée du Louvre) (7166066743).jpg|thumb|Pearl tiara of Empress [[Eugénie de Montijo|Eugénie]] (1853) featuring 212 natural pearls, [[Louvre]], Paris.]]
Fine quality natural pearls are very rare jewels. Their values are determined similarly to those of other precious gems, according to size, shape, color, quality of surface, orient, and luster.

Single natural pearls are often sold as collector's items or set as centerpieces in unique jewelry. Very few matched strands of natural pearls exist, and those that do often sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. (In 1917, jeweler [[Pierre Cartier (jeweler)|Pierre Cartier]] purchased the Fifth Avenue mansion that is now the New York Cartier store in exchange for a matched double strand of natural pearls Cartier had been collecting for years; at the time, it was valued at US$1&nbsp;million.)<ref>Strack, Elisabeth. "Pearls". Ruhle-Diebener-Verlag, 2006, p. 38 {{ISBN|3981084802}}.</ref>

The introduction and advancement of cultured pearls hit the pearl industry hard. Pearl dealers publicly disputed the authenticity of these new cultured products and left many consumers uneasy and confused about their much lower prices. Essentially, the controversy damaged the images of both natural and cultured pearls. By the 1950s, when a significant number of women in developed countries could afford their own cultured pearl necklace, natural pearls were reduced to a small, exclusive niche in the pearl industry.