A single pearl was cut in two and used for earrings for the statue of Venus in the Pantheon at Rome, and the sum paid for it was equal to about a quarter of a million dollars.

Sir Thomas Gresham, in the days of Queen Elizabeth, had a pearl valued at about seventy-five thousand dollars which he treated in the same manner Cleopatra did, dissolving it in wine and boasting he had given the most expensive dinner ever known." "All of which--" began Maud, impatiently.
"All of which, Miss Stanton, goes to show that pearls have been of great price since the beginning of history.

Nowadays we get just as valuable pearls from the South Seas, and even from Panama, St.Margarita and the Caromandel Coast, as ever came from Ceylon.

But only those of rare size, shape or color are now valued at high prices.

For instance, a string of matched pearls such as that owned by Princess Lemoine is estimated as worth only eighty thousand dollars, because it could be quite easily duplicated.