Mikimoto Kokichi
Mikimoto Kōkichi (御木本 幸吉); (10 March 1858 – 21 September 1954) was the Japanese inventor of the cultured pearl.
Early life
Born as the first son of an udon shop owner in Toba, Shima Province (present-day Mie prefecture), Mikimoto left school at the age of 13 and sold vegetables to support his family. Seeing the pearl divers of Ise unloading their treasures at the shore in his childhood started his fascination with pearls.
Meiji entrepreneur
In 1888, Mikimoto obtained a loan to start his first pearl oyster farm at the Shinmei inlet on Ago Bay in Mie prefecture together with his wife and partner Ume. On 11 July 1893, after many failures and near bankruptcy, he was able to create the first semi-spherical cultured pearl. He introduced these semi-circular pearls at a marine products exposition in Norway in 1897, and began an export business. However, it took him another 12 years to create completely spherical pearls that were indistinguishable from the highest quality natural ones, and commercially viable harvests were not obtained until 1913.
Mikimoto did not know that government biologist Tokichi Nishikawa and a carpenter, Tatsuhei Mise, had each independently discovered the secret of pearl culturing — that inserting a piece of oyster epithelial membrane (the lip of mantle tissue) with a nucleus of shell or metal into an oyster's body or mantle causes the tissue to form a pearl sack. The sack produces nacre, which coats the nucleus, thus creating a pearl. Mise received a 1907 patent for his grafting needle. When Nishikawa applied in the same year, he realized that Mise had already secured a patent. In a compromise, the pair agreed to cooperated, calling their discovery the "Mise-Nishikawa method". Mikimoto had previously received an patent in 1896 for producing hemispherical pearls, or mabes, and a 1908 patent for culturing in mantle tissue, but he could not use the Mise-Nishikawa method without invalidating his own patents. Mikimoto then altered his patent application to cover a technique to make round pearls in mantle tissue, which was granted in 1916. With this technicality, Mikimoto's business began to expand rapidly, which enabled him to buy the rights to the Mise-Niskikawa method, thus creaing a monopoly on the technique of culturing pearls.
In 1899, the first Mikimoto pearl shop opened in the fashionable Ginza district of Tokyo. The Mikimoto business quickly expanded internationally, opening stores in London (1913), then in Paris, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Shanghai and Bombay, and was thus one of the first Japanese brands to attain an international presence and recognition.
However, Mikimoto had to constantly fight allegations that his pearls were only “imitations” of real pearls, despite scientific reports to the contrary. Mikimoto took advantage of every opportunity to personally promote his pearls, and took part in the 1926 Philadelphia World Exposition in which he displayed a replica of the "Liberty Bell" covered with pearls.
Just before his death, Mikimoto was awarded the Order of Merit (First Class) by the Japanese government.
On 21 September 1954, Kokichi Mikimoto died at the age of 96. Posthumously he was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Sacred Treasure.
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External links
de:Kokichi Mikimoto eo:Mikimoto Kokichi it:Kokichi Mikimoto ja:御木本幸吉
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