In Japan's picturesque Ago Bay, a couple sits in a little hut picking out oysters from a net, cleaning them carefully one-by-one before replacing them gently back in the water. Their hope: in several ...

MIE, Japan (Reuters) - Japan's akoya pearl industry, which began in the 1890s when Kokichi Mikimoto created the world's first cultured pearls, is facing collapse due to plunging sales and stiff ...

A great irony of pearl history is that the least expensive cultured pearl product in the market today rivals the quality of the most expensive natural pearls ever found. The price-value anomaly is ...

Off the coast of Japan’s verdant Saikai National Park, the Kujukushima Islands lie scattered amid a sprawling network of narrow inlets. Their name literally translates as “99 islands,” though there ...

Japan's akoya oysters have been preëminent among cultured pearls ever since Kokichi Mikimoto first established the industry in the early part of this century. But since 1994, something has been ...

Their hope: in several months, these oysters will produce a glistening white pearl from a cultured farming technique invented in Japan that is in decline as experts die out in the ageing country.