Just recently China put on display in Wenchang, Hainan, the world's largest luminous "pearl". These are not really pearls as we know them but a rare kind of glow in the dark (phosphorescent) fluorite.

This giant luminous pearl specimen, which weighs in at 6 tonnes and is 1.6 m (5 feet) high, took 3 years to grind into a sphere!

The Chinese call them legendary luminous pearls or yemengzhu and believe touching one will bring good luck and fortune. The first yemengzhu fluorite was discovered in a Guangdong tungsten mine back in 1982. Since then, new and larger deposits have allowed several giant pearls to be made.

This latest, the largest so far, has been valued at 2.2 billion yuan or about $331 million. There are of course smaller ones. I wonder if these will be made into beads and thus a legendary luminous pearl necklace?

Other Awesome Pearls:
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Original Post by THE BEADING GEM
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