[jshepherd]

Yes, the same company who (for the last 40 years) is the only of which culturing Mabe in the Pteria Penguin. This is the same Tasaki company that boycotted the first world pearl symposium because it served to cut off the Japanese from world pearl domination. The same Tasaki company that preaches Japanese Akoya is the only way to go, yet opened a factory south of Shanghai in 1994 (Nanhui Factory) processing Akoya and freshwater pearls to be sold as "products of Japan".
Of course they say that. Does that mean it is fraud for every other pearl producing country to call their worked blister pearls Mabe, and fraud for the GIA and every other gemological institution to accept it?