The 34kg gem is FIVE TIMES bigger than the previous world record find, and was discovered in a giant clam just off the coast of Palawan Island, in the Philippines.
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But after a fire at his rundown wooden property he had to clear out and move house, taking the pearl with him.
She also revealed how the giant treasure could have remained hidden in the fisherman’s hut if not for a fire that forced the man to move out and he made a decision to hand over the priceless pearl to the local authorities.
At a staggering 1ft wide and 2.2ft long, it dwarfs the world record Pearl of Allah, which weighed over 14lbs and is worth £26.6million.
The enormous pearl was found by fisherman who cast down his anchor and it got wedged on a rock during a storm, said Tourism officer Aileen Cynthia Amurao. He chose to swim down and pull up the anchor himself and, to his surprise, found the gem.
A fisherman in the Philippines kept a giant pearl estimated to be worth a whopping $100 million under his bed for a decade.
She added: “We were amazed when he brought it to us”.
Authorities are waiting for expert gemologists to certify the pearl as genuine before officially proclaiming it as the world’s largest.
The current record holder is Pearl of Allah was also found off Palawan in the Philippines in 1934.
It’s now on show at Ripley’s Believe It or Not! in NY city.
The pearl has already been shown off to the public as part of an exhibit.
Clams very rarely create pearls, making the discovery of this gem off Palawan Island extremely rare.
They are most probably correct.
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Natural pearls are formed inside the shells of molluscs as a defence mechanism against a potentially threatening irritant, such as a parasite. Saltwater pearls usually take two to three years to develop, but larger pearls such as the one held in Puerto Princesca would have taken far longer.
