Man eating seafood bites on something hard — and worth up to thousands — at NJ diner
Usually, feeling your teeth grind against a foreign object in your food isn’t the best memory to take away from a restaurant. But for a New Jersey man, it meant he walked out potentially thousands of dollars richer.
Michael Spressler and his wife, Maria, were eating at The Lobster House in Cape May when he felt a crunch, he told NJ Advance.
“I thought one of my molars cracked,” he told the outlet.
Little did he know, it turned out to be a pearl that may be worth thousands of dollars, according to KYW.
“I was down to the 12th one, and when I picked it up with the fork, it looked kinda heavy, but I didn’t think nothing of it,” Michael Spressler said in a an interview with KYW. “Then when I started to eat it, I noticed something was in my mouth. I actually thought one of my tooth broke.”
The surprise came on a special night, too, the Brick Township couple told news outlets. The Spresslers were celebrating their 34th anniversary of the first time they visited the restaurant, they told KYW.
The restaurant is celebrating its 100th year in business, but long-time workers said they had never seen someone find a pearl in their meal, according to the news outlet.
“I have worked here for around 10 years now, and I’ve never heard of someone finding one in one of our oysters or clam shells,” one worker told KYW.
The 8.83 mm pearl could be worth up to thousands of dollars, according to NJ Advance, but the couple hasn’t gotten it appraised yet.
Pearls are graded on different criteria, including luster, surface, origin, body color and shape, according to American Pearl’s identification report.
When the restaurant shared the Spresslers’ story on Facebook, readers commented on their lucky surprise.
One commenter said they didn’t think clams could have pearls.
“Both (oysters and clams) produce pearls,” The Lobster House responded. “It’s the bivalve’s reaction to debris or grit.”
“Interesting,” the commenter replied. “I was there that day but ordered the shrimp. … Lucky find.”
Regardless of how much the pearl is worth, Maria Spressler told NJ Advance she wants to keep it.
“I would like to have it set into a nice piece of jewelry, maybe with a mermaid or something nautical,” she told KYW. “It’s a beautiful remembrance of that day and what we have is so special.”
According to The Pearl Source, there are four primary types of pearls in the world: freshwater, Japanese Akoya, Tahitian and South Sea.
The world’s most expensive pearl was found off the coast of the Philippines in 2016, weighing nearly 75 pounds, according to the site. It was valued at $100 million.
This story was originally published March 1, 2022 at 2:22 PM with the headline "Man eating seafood bites on something hard — and worth up to thousands — at NJ diner."
