[jshepherd]

Anyone have a guess as to what these may be and where they are from?

[pattye]

HUMMMM, rejects from Chinese fw harvest?
Pattye

[jshepherd]

Here is a pic of just a few. They are cultured, but they are not from China.

[jshepherd]

Actually, the question is near impossible to answer. The pearls were cultured in the Yuba River (California) with non-native mussels. Just a California experiment!

[pattye]

Hi Jeremy,
What was the largest pearl you got out of this? What was the roundest? An interesting experiment!
Pattye

[jshepherd]

I could color-correct the pictures, but they were taken with a 'basic' digital camera.
This experiment was done back in 1990 by Paul Cross. The purpose was solely to demonstrate that we (in the US) could grow pearls on our own. Paul was concerned about the Japanese “monopoly” on the pearl market and wanted to show that one didn’t need to be dependent on the Japanese to culture pearls. The Chinese were culturing freshwater pearls, but not at the quality that has developed today. Local tissue implanters were trained. The whole concept was to evidence that the technologies we had researched and developed could actually be applied and that they worked. It was intended to open the doors to what would become our pearl technology business, and to shut down the concept that everything that had to do with pearls required the Japanese.
Mussels from the Mississippi watershed included the washboard, 5-ridge, elephant ear, and pink heelsplitter (hence, the variety of pearls). About 10% of the pearls were developed with local mussels, Margaritifera margaritifera.