[Cathybear]

It looked and felt like shell. One was all white, no striations, the other had faint, light striations.

[Drucilla]

So the shell is thick enough that the Chinese can cut a 6mm bead out of it? Do they use a particular mussel for this, and just cut as many beads as they can from each 1/2?

Drucilla

[Cathybear]

I don't know what sort of shell they use; theres probably a whole industry just making shell bead nucleii.
I hammered two sizes of these with a bead nucleus.. one was 10-11mm, the other about 9mm, both had 6mm nucleii.
Maybe the size of harvested pearl is purely on time in the mussel.

[Caitlin]

There are some experts on this forum who know more about the mussel shell trade than I do and I am blurring the comments made by Drucilla & Cathy:

There is a big trade in the harvest of mussel shells. I believe that most of the mussel shells used in making nuclei come from American mussels. Tons of them are harvested from some of the bigger rivers feeding into the Mississippi and sold to be processed into nuclei. The species that contribute to this trade have very thick MOP on one side of the lip. I believe the nuclei can occur in sizes double 7mm, and they are quite expensive. I am not positive of this, but I think they can run into the $$hundreds each for SSP and some Tahitian nuclei.

Those kinds of American mussels are abundant, although about 40% of the 200 species found in America are protected, endangered or extinct, that appears to be in small rivers, creeks and tributaries in many states.

[CarolK]

Cathybear,

Those are *GREAT* shots of the nuked bead-nuke pearl. Thanks for the sacrifice! I may have missed it, but couldn't find where those pearls had originated--Australia? China? What were they--Akoyas? freshwaters?

I've been told that bead nuke pearls from China are *way* more expensive than tissue-nucleated ones, so it would be interesting if these were indeed from China.

Kojima Pearl (http://www.kojimapearl.com/pearlsstr...ds/p30165.html) has just offered up some inexpensive bead-nucleated Chinese baroques--much less expensive than the Kasumi-esque ones from that jewelry magazine a while back (I can't remember its name.). I wonder whether bead nucleation is gaining momentum in China.

CarolK

[Cathybear]

They are bead nucleated chinese freshwater pearls. 10-11mm. The lustre is different from Tissue Nucleated, sort of softer.
They haven't got them quite round yet (from the ones I've bought anyway) but they come not only in white but also lavender shades and pinks. Mostly they seem to be drop, oval or baroque shape, and from the ones I've hammered (lol), the bead nucleii have all been 6mm, which means very thick nacre. Took a lot of hits with a hammer on concrete, so tough too.

Cathy

[Raisondetre]

Many hits with the hammer ... reminds me of the time my flatmates used to make coconut soup and had to smash the shell on the concrete garage floor. We hadn't a car then, but were still tempted to put it in a bag and run it over ... good times.