Morgan Tiffany Pearl Collection
Turn of the Century

The Morgan Tiffany Pearl collection was displayed in two parts in different years at the Paris Exposition of 1889 and 1900.

Probably the most interesting assortment of American pearls is the Morgan-Tiffany Collection in the American Museum of Natural History, New York.

The excellence of this collection lies, not in the high cost of any individual pearl, but in its illustrating in a comprehensive manner the great variety, colors, and forms of American pearls.

Not only are the many varieties of fresh-water pearls represented, but likewise abalone pearls from the Pacific coast, conch pearls from the Gulf of Mexico, and a good assortment of pearly concretions from edible oysters and clams of the Atlantic coast.

This collection contains

*557 species of white and colored Unio pearls

*four multicolored

*five mallet-shapes

*1 baroque

*thirty-nine hinge-pearls

*twenty pearlaceous masses

*thirty-four calm (Venus) pearls

*fifteen abalone pearls

*eleven conch pearls

*twelve oyster (Ostrea) pearls.

The collection was exhibited in two parts, the first at the Paris Exposition of 1889, and the second at the Paris Exposition of 1900.