Hangover, Pacific Oysters and a Wild Pearl

A British man was just trying to cure his hangover with some fresh oysters. James Humphries, 34, from Newquay in England had spent the night drinking and went to buy fresh Pacific oysters from E. Rawle & Co in the morning of February 23. For Humphries, eating fresh oysters is the best cure for hangover for him.

After taking a bite, he said he felt a lump and thought that a tooth filling got loose. He soon discovered that he had bitten on a pearl. It was not an ordinary pearl according to experts. They said that pearls rarely occur in wild Pacific oysters. This is the type of oyster that Humphries bought. At the same time, a wild pearl like that one he found is highly valuable, the experts added. He’s indeed lucky that day because he only bought two pieces of oysters.

Rare pearls

According to Gareth Horner of Rawle & Co., he has sold oysters for 30 years and this is the first time that a pearl has been found in the oysters he’s sold. The rarity of this type of pearl makes a finder of one extremely lucky. Humphries is thinking of having a piece of jewelry made from his rare find. The pearl he found was very round, and an actual value could not be given because of its rarity. It is not normal for pearls to occur in Pacific oysters as another species, the pearl oysters are the known variety that produces pearls.

Lucky Finders

Indeed some people are lucky. In Columbia, South Carolina, Pamela Levi was biting into a pizza she ordered at Goatfeathers Restaurant and found a pearl.

But one of the luckiest was a woman, Amanda Jerrigan, from Houston. She was dining at a Fat Tuesday restaurant in 2011 when she found a purple pearl in her food. It was a very rare find, a qauja pearl, which according to experts is something that one in two million people could find. Through research, she was able to find one just like hers being sold on eBay for US$6,000. A couple in Florida also found a rare purple pearl inside a clam. It was a small one but the appraised value was US$25,000.

Pacific oysters are also called Miyagi oysters or Japanese oysters. They are an introduced variety in Europe and North America from Asia.