Next time you go shopping at a seafood market, pay close attention to the fresh snails. A fortune may be laying just inside one, as a Chonburi truck driver discovered.
Monthien Chansook told reporters today that a hard amber ball found inside the single sea snail he bought among a bundle of cockles at Sri Racha’s Laem Chabang seaport was certified as a genuine melo pearl by the National Gem and Jewelry institute.
The 40-year-old man said he was negotiating sale of the pearl to clear his debts and return to his hometown in Phetchaburi province for early retirement with his family.
A melo pearl is an orange pearl found in about one of every 3,000 bailer shells in the open sea. The pearl can only be discovered in the wild as the clam that produces it can’t be farmed, according to gem institute director Sumet Prasongphongchai. It’s so rare that its price per…
