Melo conch belongs to Gastropoda. It is a coconut snail with yellow or yellow and black spots, or papaya snail. It is a single-shell mollusk found in Southeast Asia such as Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, and in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean. Rare and precious Merlot beads are extremely difficult to produce. The probability of finding them from conch is one in a thousand, and the probability of being fully exploited to large size and good quality is even lower.
Merlot beads are very rare in the collection market. It is the most precious, and the orange tone is similar to ripe papaya. There is a cloud-like flame pattern structure inside, and the appearance is crystal clear porcelain luster. At present, the global stock of melody beads is only about 200, mainly from the royal treasures of Ruan Chao, the last dynasty in Vietnam. Because the Vietnamese royal family was deeply influenced by the traditional dragon culture in China, Merlot Pearl was regarded as "Dragon Ball", which was only collected by the emperor and endowed with sacred symbolic significance, so it was well preserved. The royal family is not behind. These treasures were exiled to France with the last emperor, and he sold them one by one, and finally lost them in Europe. Most of them are treasured by the European jewelry industry.
As a kind of rare royal jewelry, Merlot Pearl has been a collection treasure that collectors in the East and the West have been paying attention to and exploring for many years, with high value. In June 2003, a Merlot with a price of 100.4 carat was sold for 2.7 million US dollars, with an average price of 26,892 US dollars per carat, setting a world record for the unit price of a single pearl. In the auction of Christie's in Hong Kong in autumn 2007, a 9 1.29 carat Merlot sold for 1.25 million dollars.