I love clams and have often chomped on the little debris in the shell, of course I'd always look to see if it really is a pearl but usually it's tiny little pebbles. Check out what this lucky couple from Florida found in their $10 plate of steamed clams- a rare purple pearl! Is this not the funniest thing you've heard all year? (as in today!)
From Palm Beach Post: Halfway through a dozen steamers at Dave's Last Resort & Raw Bar, George Brock got a funny look on his face.
He pulled a bowl under his mouth and spit out something that his wife, Leslie, said sounded like a BB clinking against the plastic. But when the couple bravely peered into the clammy broth Friday afternoon, an iridescent purple pearl winked back at them. One expert says that lucky bite could fetch thousands.
"The funny part of it is he hardly ever orders clams," Leslie said Sunday.
The Royal Palm Beach pair had headed east for a drive by the beach when they decided to stop for seafood in Lake Worth. A line stretched out the door at their first restaurant choice, so they pulled into Dave's.
By the middle of their meal, they had gotten to know most of the other diners inside. Everyone wanted to see the purple pearl on the half-shell.
The gem, extremely rare, occurs most frequently in large New England quahogs, clams known for the violet markings on the inside of their shells.
A Portsmouth, R.I., family found one of the pearls two years ago while shucking quahogs to make clams casino.
George Brock ordered a dozen middleneck clams, smaller than quahogs but larger than cherrystones and on special for $10 at Dave's. Manager Tom Gerry said the restaurant gets its clams from Apalachicola in the Panhandle.
Vermont gemologist Antoinette Matlins, author of The Pearl Book: The Definitive Buying Guide, said the value of the Brocks' pearl rests largely in an exhibit with the American Museum of Natural History. The eventual auction of its quahog pearl brooch will set the tempo for pricing purple pearls in the international market.
As for the Brocks' round pearl, she said, "few are round and few are a lovely color, so this is rare. I think they have found something precious and lovely and valuable."
The Brocks plan to sell it — "unless it's not worth that much," Leslie Brock said. "Then we'll probably put it on a pendant."
It could go either way, Matlins said.
At 6 mm, it's small. And warm-water pearls lack the luster of their northern counterparts.
The Brocks' waitress brought over a plastic bag, and the couple took their gem to a jewelry store across the street, where the owner seemed awestruck. Never in decades had he seen one of those.
Since then, Leslie Brock has called a local appraiser with auction house Christie's of New York and read every article she could find online about the rare purple pearls.
After learning more about their treasure, the couple stopped back by Dave's to find they might have started something.
Giggling, Leslie Brock said, "We went back in and found out a lot of people were ordering clams."
