Swampscott family reevaluates gem

SWAMPSCOTT – It looks like a miniature Easter egg – faintly lavender in color with a flawless smooth surface – and Mike Serino is very glad his daughter, Julia, held onto the purple pearl in the six years since he bit down on it while eating seafood stew.The pearl sat forgotten in Serino’s home until last week when Serino and his wife, Michelle, were watching the news and heard a report about a Virginia woman who found a purple pearl and had it appraised for $3,000.They frantically searched their home for the tiny object that interrupted Mike’s Portuguese dining experience and found it in Julia’s jewelry box. Serino did some online research and found out the baseline value of a purple pearl is $1,800. He talked to a couple of North Shore jewelers and a Boston pearl expert and learned the pearl’s value could reach into the high five figures.”It’s 6.15 karat. We’ve done a lot of research: You cannot find a truly purple pearl,” he said.A town police officer for 13 years, Serino isn’t even sure how he should pursue the task of measuring the pearl’s value. Once the holidays are over, he plans to take the pearl to noted Boston auction house Skinner for evaluation.”The shape is perfect, and its texture is like porcelain,” he said.In addition to Julia, a 14-year-old Swampscott High School freshman, Serino and his wife have two other daughters: Lauren, 22, and 2-year-old Isabelle. The family was eating out in Peabody at a restaurant Serino thinks is now closed when he had his close encounter of the rare pearl kind.”I spit it out. At first, I thought it was a rock. We looked at it and said, ?Let’s take it home,'” he recalled.He can’t remember if he gave it to Lauren or Julia for safekeeping, but he was very glad it turned up with his daughter’s other valuable possessions. Julia said she didn’t give the pearl much thought since that night out for dinner, but she said she is excited to find out if it is worth anything.”I think it’s pretty weird: It was just sitting around the house; now it’s worth something,” she said.Outnumbered 4 to 1 by women in his family, Serino is already feeling pressure to temper his get-rich fantasies with a family perspective.”They all want their cut,” he joked.