First off, Iamanit's next post revealed her newly found discovery of what Jeremy actually said, so quoting it was way behind where the discussion is now. I guess you didn't read further before you answered.
Also, I think it is very important to understand these things when they come up. This is hardly a useless discussion to many of us. I don't see what the "controversy" is about- this is a discussion and it has unearthed facts for many readers and will continue to do so for years. Arbitrary judgements that dismiss "useless controversies" on a thread, seem to be nothing but a personal attempt at closing a discussion down, and are perhaps better avoided?
Third, Jeremy knows what maeshori is. He has referred to it here, numerous times. He said those pearls were untreated and unbleached. If he said that, they are unbleached and untreated. Yakota may be talking about pre-treatment, but who ever said it applies to these pearls? Yakota himself said maeshori is applied to 90% of the pearls in Japan. Not 100%.
Japan apparently applies maeshori to almost any pearl that enters their land, but other countries also produce very fine thick nacre akoyas such as Vietnam and perhaps other undisclosed places. Most often off white akoyas are gorgeous and do not need treating except that matching perfectly might be harder. To me the matching is very quick when done be experts and all the varying shades of white would enable each strand to have an individuality not appreciated, nor sought after, except by sophisticated buyers. This artificial, bleached platinum then pinked thing is an attempt to dummy down the pearls, not to create a market for their individuality. IMO.
Instead of creating a market for perfectly bleached white, then pinked pearls, Japan could have as easily decided to avoid treatments except cleanup and a bit of oiling. But they seem to have a compulsion to pre-shape every pearl into a match identical to millions of other pearls. IMO, bleaching. whether part of maeshori or not, makes all pearls look more alike and it is not necessary. For instance, SS pearls are not treated unless they go through Japan!, and neither are Sea of Cortez pearls. Nor natural colored freshwater pearls.
The result of mass-produced maeshori-bleached pearls is a machine gun effect of spewing identical, uniform, matching pearls marching off to their destinies on the necks of women striving to display identical, and almost compulsory, symbols of respectability except for size, which in turn ranks them within the group of respectable women.
Most buyers and women have no idea there is an alternative to what the treatment does to the durability of the pearls - unless they come over here to P-G.com!-
