What is a blister pearl?
Blister pearls are simply pearls that are still attached to the shell of the mollusk. The Chinese were probably the first people to culture pearls when they implanted tiny Buddha figures between the mollusk’s soft mantle tissue and its shell in the fifth century A.D. When they came back a year or two later, the shells were lined with Buddha blister pearls. We occasionaly carry blister pearls on our Pearls in Other Shapes page.