MIKIMOTO KOKICHI

born January 1858, Mie prefecture, Japan died Sept. 21, 1954, near Nagoya Japanese pearl farmer and merchant who introduced the commercial production of cultured pearls. In 1892, by inserting semiglobular mother-of-pearl beads into pearl oysters, he succeeded in inducing the oysters to form half pearls around the irritating foreign substance. Tokichi Nishikawa, his son-in-law, perfected the technique of producing wholly spherical cultured pearls. Mikimoto strictly maintained the high quality of his pearls, exhibited them at international expositions, and established sales offices abroad. Although his monopoly in the cultured pearl business was gradually broken, until his death he continued research to improve the quality of Mikimoto pearls.