A man from Pennsylvania, USA, accidentally discovered a rare pearl during dinner while vacationing in Delaware.
Scott Overland, 37, was dining with his wife and two children at the Salt Air restaurant in Rehoboth Beach on August 9 when he found a purple pearl in an $14 clam appetizer, as reported by USA Today on August 15.
“I thought I had bitten into a shell or something. My wife thought it was candy because it looked like it,” Overland described.
The pearl is not perfectly spherical but has a flat side resembling a button.
The pearl is not perfectly spherical but has a flat side resembling a button. He noted that he and his wife never imagined they could find a pearl in a clam dish at a restaurant.
Typically, pearls develop within clams and some other mollusks. In this case, the clam belonged to the North American species raised at Cherrystone Aqua Farms in Chesapeake Bay. Ballard Clams and Oysters, the parent company of Cherrystone Aqua Farms, harvests between 60 to 80 million clams each year in Chesapeake.
Tim Parsons, a spokesperson for Ballard, mentioned that he hears about diners finding pearls in their clams or oysters 2-3 times a year.
While it is unclear how much the pearl is worth, Parsons stated that such pearls can be appraised and are often “valuable.”
“We have some people who have worked for the company for a long time, over 20 years, and they have two or three (pearls) like that,” Parsons said.
North American clams typically produce non-nacreous pearls that resemble porcelain, according to the American Gem Society. They rarely form perfect spheres and often take on a button-like shape, similar to the one found in Overland’s meal.
These pearls can range in color from white to brown and purple.
For Overland, “the craziest part” of his story is that he almost returned the dish because it had pepper, which his wife dislikes.
“I guess sometimes we are rewarded for not being a difficult diner,” he joked.
Overland plans to have the pearl appraised but may not sell it. “It’s a fun memory,” he said.
