He’s one lucky shucker.
Rick Antosh, 66, met a high-school buddy for lunch at Grand Central Oyster Bar on Dec. 5 and ordered his usual $14.75 pan roast. Diving into the stew-like dish, which includes six Blue Point oysters, he felt a tiny object rolling around his mouth.
The Edgewater, New Jersey, resident feared he needed a dentist.
“For a fraction of a second, there was terror,” Antosh told The Post. “Is it a tooth; is it a filling?”
Turns out, it was a pea-sized pearl — which, according to Eddie Livi, owner of DSL Pearl on West 47th Street, could be worth thousands of dollars.
“Value is based on luster, clarity and roundness,” Livi said. Looking at a photo of Antosh’s pearl, he noted its imperfections. “It is not very round and has a black spot that may or may not be removable. [For] something in this condition, a dealer who really wants it, ballpark, may pay $2,000 to $4,000.”
When he discovered his treasure, Antosh initially thought it wasn’t that unusual.
“This isn’t Joe’s Steakhouse. It’s the most famous oyster place in the United States,” said the retired hospitality consultant. “I [assumed] it doesn’t happen often, but figured it happens at times.”
So he pocketed the pearl and didn’t say anything to the restaurant. But after he got home, the single Antosh got curious and called to ask how often they see such a thing.
The worker on the other end of the phone was stunned — as was executive chef Sandy Ingber when he heard the news.
“I’ve been here 28 years,” said Ingber, “This is only the second time I’ve seen this happen. And we sell over 5,000 oysters on the half shell every day.”
He explained that the oysters used in the pan roast are from Virginia and arrive at the restaurant pre-shucked.
“It’s extremely rare, so that makes it interesting and exciting,” he added.
Jon Turcott, general manager of Glidden Point Oyster Farms in Maine, agreed. “It’s very rare to happen naturally. It takes time for a pearl to form and they are generally harvested for market before [a pearl] becomes that large.”
According to Matthew W. Gray, an oyster physiologist at the University of Maryland, pearl production in Eastern oysters is a bit of a mystery.
“Among pearl producers, some species can produce a pearl that is the size of pea in less than one year; however, environmental and genetic factors play a role on the growth rate. The occurrence of natural pearls in oysters is not well understood, but anecdotally it has been estimated as 1 in 10,000,” added Gray.
When an irritant, such as a piece of sand, gets lodged in the oyster’s shell, a pearl forms to protect the mollusk.
Antosh, who hasn’t had his prize appraised, said he’s not yet sure what he’ll do with it. But he feels like the world is his oyster.
“I will definitely come back and try to find more pearls,” he said of Grand Central Oyster Bar. “You never know.”