Long before the discovery of gold or silver, the adorning of human bodies with jewelry and precious stones was in fashion. Some of the earliest necklaces included pearls; almost perfectly spherical, and quite lustrous, they formed the basis for most jewelry going as far back as 2,000 years ago. That they were quite rare in nature only heightened the appeal, but several Japanese men, including the son of a noodle maker, Kokichi Mikimoto, thought there might be a way to artificially produce them.

On this day, July 11, in 1893, after years of experimentation with freshwater clams and cultured hemspherical pearls, Mikimoto created the first spherical ones from a bamboo oyster on his farm

Mikimoto was a tireless advocate of the new culturing techniques and their resulting gems (it didn’t hurt that the efforts would also open up new markets for his pearls.) The Mikimoto name became the standard in jewelry circles, after he pioneered a grading system to allow only the top 5% of his cultured pearls to be used in his products.