Cracking pearls

[Josh]

More dribble

More dribble

Hi George, good to hear from you again. Don't worry, this is just the place for that sort of dribble.

I think it's a shame though to use a protected species and even more so when you consider that there is a by-product of pearl farming that works even better than traditional freshwater mussel nuclei. The Pinctada MOP nuclei that we use was tested independently by our Service de la Perliculture and was shown to produce THREE TIMES MORE A (AAA) GRADE PEARLS than any other nucleus type. I don't mean to shout but those are some heavy statistics.

Patagonia clothing founder and lifelong environmentalist Yvon Chouinard said in his book on biz "Let My People Go Surfing" that anytime in his long years of business that he did the right thing for the environment, he made money. How great would it be if all business owners thought along these lines?

 

[pattye]

I feel we all want that for you too, Josh!----to continue to do good for the environment and make money!

Pattye
so many pearls, so little time


And yes, George, we want to hear all about that kind of stuff.

 

[Caitlin]

and is a protected species but you know.....

Hi George
Welcome! Your input is much appreciated.

Would you mind finishing the above sentence?

 

[Pearling Technologies]

Mop

Mop

MOP nuclei are certainly a very good material to work with. Many 'white' pearls farmers are reluctant to use them as they worry about it showing through the nacre. Obviously Josh in your case and other black pearl farmers (and those who have good nacre thickness) it is not a worry.

The only real problem with MOP is that you cannot get quantity of larger sizes required for 2nd/3rd operation pearls. This is where other materials were needed. Many tests were undertaken with MOP in Australia - both by private companies like ours and research bodies within government and pearling companies - and while they found that results were good, not one company switched.

I dare say also that the results with actual pearl quality would have less to do with the nucleus raw material as such and more to do with the surface of the nuclei, the process used to smooth/polish the nuclei, the grafting process and of course all husbandry protocols. Josh, not all pearl farmers have your attitude to farming....a shame really.

We have seen excellent pearls grown on many different materials - nacre will grow on just about anything. Clam is ok (even if using farmed clam) but cannot see it being used widely due to the drilling aspect; Bironite could be workable and we have some nice pearls grown using this nuclei; we still use plastic nuclei for mabe and these produce very nice pearls.

 

[Pearling Technologies]

Protected

Protected

Sure! Protected species but you know.......some suppliers don't care.

We have found many suppliers of nuclei ex Asia supplying nuclei made from clam shell but calling it something else to suggest it is a mussel shell based nuclei. It's easy to tell the difference if you know what to look for (although some are a little more difficult).

Once beads are made from the shell, it is harder for the layperson to tell and that makes it even harder to be prosecuted for it.

 

[Caitlin]

It smacks of the same attitude as lead in kid's toys.......

 

[Josh]

Who knows why MOP would produce higher quality pearls but I can only wonder if it's not a compatibility issue. Putting pearl on pearl seems to make mores sense than pearl on clam or plastic. Not only that, it's a dream to drill. Also it's silly for "white" pearl farmers to stay away from MOP as it's often perfectly white. Just like here and everywhere else, farmers are reluctant to switch to something new although it may be better in every sense. You can lead a horse to water but you can't get him to graft with MOP, or something like that.

 

[Valeria101]

If the match of nacre structure rather then any chemical details is what matters no synthetics stand a chance to reproduce the effect

Just thinking out loud...

Who knows why MOP would produce higher quality pearls but I can only wonder if it's not a compatibility issue.

So.. would it be fair to say that using nuclei from the same species of shell that receives them gets better results? Are there any other cases besides yours?

 

[Josh]

It's all just guess work for now but that makes sense to me. Don't know of any similar cases except blood and bone transfers.

 

[Valeria101]

It's all just guess work for now but that makes sense to me. Don't know of any similar cases except blood and bone transfers.

Hm... that's where imunology comes to play. Tissue structure counts for even more exotic stuff - tissue engineering and such. Don't worry, this is all I know about these from the odd business presentation. With mussels and MOP, direct experiements may be cheaper then any kind of 'theory'...

Anyone knows whether the 'South Sea' pearls are obtained with nucleii from the same P. Maxima?

 

[Pearling Technologies]

I'm not sure I agree with the same material theory. A lot of alternative nuclei have been used with varying degrees of success. Not so much regarding nacre formation but more so for workability by processors.

I would say that 99% of all nuclei used in Australia are ex mussel shell. Not necessarily ex USA but mussel shell.

 

[Josh]

What you mean by that is people are using Chinese mussel right?
Wait a minute.
Some where on this board I saw what looked like huge wasteful piles of Chinese oysters after harvest. Can anyone tell me if the shells of Chinese freshwater pearls are milled into nuclei? I ask this because we recently received more ("Pinctada") MOP beads that looked different than what we usually get, whiter and a little less regular but with classic top and bottom shine spots that characterize real Pinctada MOP nuclei. We inspected them closely and they were clean with a nice finish. They also drilled like dream. Could these nuclei be freshwater MOP and not saltwater? There's maybe one person on this whole forum who can answer this, I hope.

 

[jshepherd]

Yes, they can be used for nuclei. But the shells are too thin for anything larger than 6-7 mm, so unless you received a batch of small beads, it did not come from the Hyriopsis cumingii. The shell is mainly used for crafts, buttons, and of course all those products that have "pearl powder".

 

[Josh]

I had a hunch who that one person was.
Then the new nucs could only be P. Maxima right? The nuclei were around 10mm in diameter(3.3bu).

 

[Pearling Technologies]

From all the MOP processing we have done we have seen quite a variation in colour. From darker tan to quite light, as you have experienced. Of course there is the issue of bleaching although i would doubt that this would be necessary or worth considering for the MOP.

Some of the shells i have seen in China have tended to be on the thinner side but still with good capacity to produce beads or reaonsble size but mainly small.

Certainly Chinese mussel is being used for mainstream production. A lot of the shell has a certain opaqueness to it rather than pure and bright clean colouring of US shells but characteristics required as a nucleus material are similar to US shells.

 

[Valeria101]

Yes, they can be used for nuclei. But the shells are too thin for anything larger than 6-7 mm...

Is the use of small nuclei the reason why many of the nucleated freshwaters come with such thick nacre and such odd shapes?

 

[jshepherd]

Is the use of small nuclei the reason why many of the nucleated freshwaters come with such thick nacre and such odd shapes?

I don't believe so. The beads I have seen in CBSB have all been very large, 9 mm and above. Strictly based on economics there really is no other shell that could be used than the Tridacna gigas. The shapes are due to the pearl sac elasticity. The pearl sacs in second grafting of freshwater are not like those in saltwater. They are in the mantle muscle, not the gonad. It is much more difficult to slip a bead into a perfect pocket when it is in the mantle. The sac changes shape and the epithelial cells continue nacre deposition.

 

[Josh]

Jeremy,
Do you or anyone else know if there are any youtube vids on "in the mantle grafting" of Chinese fresh water's? Mrs. Strack went over it in her lecture in Tucson but it would be good to have something to watch a few times.

 

[jshepherd]

This one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uXeSb7i5X0. If you need a close up in higher resolution let me know. YouTube is a little blurry.

 

[Josh]

You can't see what is going on at all inside the critter but the speed of the "incision" makes me think they are just stuffing mantle tissue pieces under the host oysters mantle. Either that or more probably, the mantle is nothing like P. Margaritifera and the technology is totally nontransferable.