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A New Jersey couple made the find of a lifetime while eating at one of their favorite seafood restaurants. Michael and Maria Spressler have been going to The Lobster House in Cape May for the past 34 years and almost always order a dozen clams on the half shell for an appetizer.
As Michael ate the last clam, he bit into something hard and thought he may have chipped a tooth.
"I was down to the 12th one, and when I picked it up on the fork, it looked kinda heavy, but I didn't think nothing of it," he told KYW. "Then when I started to eat it, I noticed something was in my mouth. I actually thought one of my tooth broke."
It turns out Michael found a massive pearl that could be worth thousands of dollars. The couple said they don't plan to sell the pearl, which measured at 8.8 millimeters. Instead, Maria said she wants to get it set in a piece of jewelry.
"I would like to have it set into a nice piece of jewelry, maybe a mermaid or something nautical," she said. "It's a beautiful remembrance of that day, and what we have is so special."
Workers at The Lobster House, which is celebrating its 100 anniversary this year, said this is the first time they remember somebody finding a pearl in their clams.
"I have worked here for around 10 years now, and I've never heard of someone finding one in one of our oysters or clamshells," Sarah Stadnicar told the news station.