PORTSMOUTH, R.I. – A clam that a Portsmouth couple thought was rotten turned out to hold a rare gem: a purple pearl that could be worth a lot of money.
Earlier this month, Barbara Krensavage brought home about four dozen quahogs from a Newport seafood restaurant. Her husband, Ted, was shucking them when he came across one he thought was diseased. But on closer inspection, the couple found the pearl.
“We’re finding out there’s only a handful on earth,” Barbara Krensavage said. “We were excited, biting it and everything.”
Some experts estimate that only 1 in 100,000 quahog clams contains a pearl, and 1 in 20 of those pearls is of gem quality. That puts the odds on the Krensavages’ find at 1 in 2 million.
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