| It does look like the fireball (or tadpole). But, if you remember why the fireballs became so popular in the first place it was because of their similarity to free form South Sea pearls.
A couple years back I bought a couple of strands of the 'fireball' style pearls from the HK office of Shanxiahu. I just bought them to show people what nucleated freshwater pearls looked like. I think the photo is somewhere on this forum. A year or so later Modern Jeweler asked me to borrow them for a photo as they had suddenly become a hit. I have paid almost nothing for the strands and they are suddenly commanding a premium!
I have heard different stories regarding what actually makes a fireball. But I have never seen definitive proof. So much of it is speculation yet preached as fact in the industry. My favorite theory is that the tail is produced by escaping gasses from the decomposition of the cells of the donor tissue. |