Makes me wonder if an underworld of tissue-nucleated porcelaneous pearls already exists.
Your guess should be allot better then mine!
I am tempted to remain skeptical at this point. With demand for these being what it is, I cannot imagine what would such an operation feed on: either waiting a few decades hoping for a blockbuster or dropping a large doze of tiny 'news' in a small bucket of specialist buyers. Even if this works, it would be more of a prank then an industry.
There isn't a book of wonderful porcelain-pear jewels even. Just one for conch pearls, and even that one doesn't seem to be making a whole lot of difference... I mean, some time has past since Linee wanted to start a pearling industry by broadcasting his patent.
That's all I can think of, awaiting evidence of some contrary.
At least, if a long list of species can be induced to produce pearls under controlled conditions & disclosure, someone may be inspired to use such things as reference for identification? Hm... there could hardly be better, come to think of it! Even if natural / cultured may never be provable, some conditions would change - perhaps a nudge to keeping these things rare, regardless.
[N.b. - this is brainstorming, no particular caution taken to make sense!]
I also read the reports. It was for Melo melo cultured pearls in Thailand. [...]
I'd be very interested to know what happened to this Thai operation.
I will try to get more about it, however, Gia Thai is also where I would be asking first. Do you know whether they are aware of this?
... after the first pearl came up, that was it. no telling to anybody.
May I ask why now?
