Natural Abalone Pearls

[Hyun-Yoon Yoon]

Marcus!

Thanks for your great post.

I have to read above several times.

Looking forward to seeing more.


Yoon

 

[GemGeek]

I agree! Marc is taking us along on his exploration of the origins of the blister pearls. And those photos and notations are terrific.

 

[J Marcus]

I've been extremely busy lately but will get back to this ASAP. Also, the more I have critically examined some of the abalone anomalies I've dug out of my stock, the more questions are raised and some of it will require a bit of work (thus time) to uncover, though I don't plan to do it all at once. I have someone lined up that is willing to experiment with X-raying some of these in a few weeks. Don't know where that will lead but it should be interesting!

Marc
http://www.flyrodjewelry.com/home.html

 

[pearlescence]

This is beginning to look more like proper academic research - Have you been in touch with Douglas?
If this is indeed 'new' knowledge then it would be a pity not to pursue a proper research methodology so that your findings can be fully recognised

 

[SteveM]

What would be of immediate interest is the origin of the shells (species and location of harvest. No need to reveal sources?yet!).

 

[J Marcus]

This is beginning to look more like proper academic research - Have you been in touch with Douglas?
If this is indeed 'new' knowledge then it would be a pity not to pursue a proper research methodology so that your findings can be fully recognised

Thank you for the suggestion. Who is Douglas? I've thought about the way that this looks somewhat academic but am not sure if I'm not covering ground that already lies somewhere in a dusty graduate thesis paper or mouldering in some journal. Still, I haven't done anything to these odd blisters since I started examining and photographing them for the forum. The specimens that I've since located in shells are still in their shells. I think that there's a dept. of marine sciences of some sort here at Western Washington U. so I might contact someone there just to see if they were interested in what I'm doing.

Smetzler: All the ones that I've shown so far are either from Red or Pink abalone. For all practical purposes there is no discernible difference between blisters of the two and I find that it isn't always that easy to tell which type of shell that you have--especially if they've been heavily parasitized which often makes their shells hard to tell apart. I have a few from Black and Green abalones and those are no problem. Provenence would prove almost impossible, though. How does one tell where a shell found at a yard sale in Ohio came from? (for example. . . )

News flash: I received a small shipment of shells from one of my sources today and there are two of the solid blister clusters among them! One with four nodules may be too badly weathered to be of any commercial value (will have to be peeled--we'll see) but may be usefull for "dissection." The other is truly a prize! It is a double made up of a pair of two almost identical sized orbs that are larger than any I have found to date! They measure about 12mm X 7.5mm, are about 3/4 exposed above the shell and are absolutely stunning and pristine--as in gorgeous!!! Don't know when I'll have photos--buried in work at the present.

Marc
http://www.flyrodjewelry.com/home.html

 

[J Marcus]

Does anyone out there have a good idea of how large an abalone free pearl has to be to have more than negligible value?

Marc

 

[J Marcus]

I just recently found (again--I'd lost track of it. . .) An abstract of a paper by Dr. Grahame Brown of Queensland, Australia, detailing his findings concerning small, solid pearls discovered by Lou Hill of Wellington, NZ in masses found within the shell wall of Haliotis Iris. Some of them are discrete and some are found as aggregate clusters. In this case, the pearls seem to all be associated with infestations of polychaete worms while the ones I have found don't seem, so far, to be associated directly with any parasites.

http://www.abalonepearls.co.nz/images/pearlpaper.pdf

I found this link refered to in Lou Hill's site:

http://www.abalonepearls.co.nz/home.html

Marc
http://www.flyrodjewelry.com/home.html

 

[J Marcus]

Since I was going out to snap some quick photos of a couple odd shells this evening, I grabbed the shell with the amazing double solid (I think) blister. I haven't done anything with it yet but I had to show it off. It measures about 12mm X 7.5mm and is beautiful. Interestingly, it happened to form (or deposit?) right on top of an old blister apparrently formed by a toredo clam that was later "released" by other parasites eating away the outside of the shell that held it in place. (It's tough to be an abalone these days!) The first shot is what I saw when I first peeked in under the lip of the shell. The next shot is the best close up I could get without cutting the shell apart. Pretty, yes? The third picture is of one more possible solid pearl in the same shell--also right on an old large blister. Looks a bit weathered, though.

--More to follow--

Marc
http://www.flyrodjewelry.com/home.html

 

[Caitlin]

Thanks. This is such an education in Abalone shells. I wish I knew much of the stuff you have been teaching us when I used to beachcomb for them.

 

[hopepaua]

Berry Blister of Paua

Berry Blister of Paua

Paua Berry, yummy!

 

[J Marcus]

Paua Berry, yummy!

Wow! Those are fabulous!! The ones that formed right in the muscle scar are really interesting. They may be much like the pearls that formed in the muscle scar that New Zealand Natural Pearl showed us a while back. Do you think that they are solid pearls? Did that shell come from New Zealand? Thanks for showing--they're beautiful!

Marc
http://www.flyrodjewelry.com/home.html

 

[hopepaua]

Wow! Those are fabulous!! The ones that formed right in the muscle scar are really interesting. They may be much like the pearls that formed in the muscle scar that New Zealand Natural Pearl showed us a while back. Do you think that they are solid pearls? Did that shell come from New Zealand? Thanks for showing--they're beautiful!

Marc
http://www.flyrodjewelry.com/home.html

Thank you for the comment. Yes, they are from New Zealand and I think it is solid pearls. I took photo from out side of the shell as well. They are good specimen!

Nozomi

 

[New Zealand Natural Pearl]

Another berry cluster from N.Z.

Another berry cluster from N.Z.


Thank you HopePaua for showing our Abalone
Another is attached
This Berry Cluster is attached Near the foot.

 

[GemGeek]

That color is scrumptious!

 

[J Marcus]

Here's an oddball abalone shell that I received recently. It's not a crab leg, but it seems that an abalone will try to cover whatever encroaches on it! Another year or two down the line would have been interesting to see...


Marc
Http://www.flyrodjewelry.com/home.html

 

[J Marcus]

View attachment 4545
Thank you HopePaua for showing our Abalone
Another is attached
This Berry Cluster is attached Near the foot.

Aha! So they occur in this form in Pauas too! It looks like there is more than one cluster there. (?) Beautiful. Do you remember the sizes of them?

Oh yes--of course--there is a good example in the second picture that HopePaua posted. . . Again--beautiful!

Marc
http://www.flyrodjewelry.com/home.html

 

[J Marcus]

Ah! Caught it just in time! Just as it was about to slip away to page 2!

There was a ridge, about 62mm long, in one of my shells. It looks as though the abalone squeezed together part of the inside of the shell and it formed a protruding fold. (Pix 1, 2 % 3) I thought that it might be somehow similar to the "wing pearls" that NZNP posted earlier. I cut it out and began to grind off the back, expecting to find nothing more than empty space, conchiolin and perhaps the remains of a parasite in the middle. I was using a very aggressive wheel and ground through the back and a layer of conchiolin and then about one mm into another layer of shell. (ouch!)(fourth photo) What I found didn't make a lot of sense at first so I carefully scraped out some of the conchiolin and realized that what I had seemed to possibly be an imbedded pearl! (last photo) It is a very odd shape and I began to think that it enclosed something on the order of a small fish or other creature. However, it didn't have any obvious separation from the shell on one side. I took it down to a friendly local dentist and got his assistant to X-ray it. It's interior is a puzzle at best. No fish that I could find and some very odd forms internally. The X-ray is too dark to scan so will try to photo it with light coming through it later. There is a suture line that seems to separate part of it from the other--can't tell to what extent, yet. I figured out that the side that doesn't seem to have a separation from the shell forms a sort of flange that is sandwiched between the inside and outside shell layers and I cut through it in cutting the whole thing out of the shell. It's kind of like it was a bit of pastry dough that was squeezed out and them squeezed down and stretched out thin on one side. Go figure. . . I'm not sure what to do with it at this point. I'll have to give it careful thought. The inside pearl (?) measures about 60mm in length.

 

[Caitlin]

Hi Mark
I have been reading Edwin Streeter's Pearls and the Pearling Life (1886 or so) . In the early chapters there is a section where he explains that the shell is created from the inside and moves out as new layers are laid down. New layers cover blisters until they are on the outside because the outside gets worn away. Thus he says, blisters will eventually get buried in nacre and finally reach the outside of the shell. Abalone was the example he used.

Now, quite a few of his other explanations are outdated, but I thought this was interesting.

What do you all think? Or know?

 

[J Marcus]

Caitlin:

Absolutely, that is true. See my post above on the double attached solids. They are almost dead center on top of an old blister that was eaten away on the outside until the toredo clam fell out and was being covered from the inside when it was harvested. I see this phonemenon all the time when working with the shells.

Marc
http://www.flyrodjewelry.com/home/html