[Valeria101]

Picking three separate points from the previous posts:

Originally Posted by CortezPearls

I have been able to see the spirals with only a Jeweler's loupe...

That sounds like one easy diagnostic for polishing to me ... if it works on most cultured pearl type (as if there were many!). If only other 'treatments' would be as easy to spot! Are they?


PS - to whom might be concerned: I am aware that polishing is an accepted treatment by historic standards. So this is theoretical chat - in line with debating the... dunno, fascinating chemical composition of garnets or something.

Originally Posted by CortezPearls

I would pay 10 times less for a polished pearl...
... It might sound DRASTIC but it is only my personal viewpoint.

... together with:

Originally Posted by CortezPearls

Polishing sacrifices orient/iridescence for luster. [...]
So, this is the idea: you have a beautifully iridescent pearl (orient), or shockful of Overtones...would you polish it? Nope. Never ever.
But, instead you have a pearl that is of lower quality, [...] if you polish it, then it is shiny...you can ask a bit more ...

Is overtone changed by polishing too?

And one more:

Can't imagine that the majority of pearls harvests around the world would be desirable w/o polishing (i.e. the most basic treatment, washing aside!). Somehow, hope this is so... and not many pearls go through the grind unnecessarily... that would be sad.

Would you say that treatments also change the price structure (i.e. relative premium from one quality class to the next) or just pushes everything upwards, or what?

The huge quantity and diversity of more or less visibly treated pearls does seem to have affected the popularity or recognition of the natural look, but then, the price tag is pretty darn recognizable (either natural pearls, or natural color that, since the 'natural surface' / 'untreated' is hardly a label yet...).

[smetzler]

Originally Posted by CortezPearls

…since the Industry is not doing anything about this the I guess it is a matter of PERSONAL CHOICE.

Ouch! Already felt I stepped on some toes...

No damage here. As any commodity finds a wider audience, it is obliged to standardize (globalize?) for predictability of quality and supply. That's not why I fell in love with pearls, however. The democratization of pearls rings politically correct but it has its downside.

Don't particularly like Starbucks coffee, either (as a Seattlite I can say that!).

Steve
Seattle

[CortezPearls]

Originally Posted by Valeria101

Can't imagine that the majority of pearls harvests around the world would be desirable w/o polishing (i.e. the most basic treatment, washing aside!). Somehow, hope this is so... and not many pearls go through the grind unnecessarily... that would be sad.

Would you say that treatments also change the price structure (i.e. relative premium from one quality class to the next) or just pushes everything upwards, or what?

The huge quantity and diversity of more or less visibly treated pearls does seem to have affected the popularity or recognition of the natural look, but then, the price tag is pretty darn recognizable (either natural pearls, or natural color that, since the 'natural surface' / 'untreated' is hardly a label yet...).

I can imagine (and I hope!) that TOP NOTCH pearls can be easily recognized at harvest time (we can) so they would be set aside, not to be polished.

For your next question we would need someone with expertise in the field of Akoyas and/or FWPs. My guess is that the overall price structure goes upwards after processing. Jeremy would be our man, he deals directly with the producers/processors and knows what they are expecting.

As you say, polishing is an accepted treatment. Initially done with coarse grain salt, but other methods were also known: feeding your pearls to chickens/ducks, and others. I have seen good polishing on Tahitian blacks (not over-polished, you can still see their spirals) and overtones are unnafected.

[perlas]

A 40x loupe? I better check again. I just haven't really thought I'd see a lot in pearls than in transparent gemstones. I'd probably get more luck in a pteria mabe to see the spirals although I do have unpolished pearls...

Yes, I think we wouldn't polish a highly iridescent pearl. But "they" would for the fact that only a small fraction of the harvent actually have iridescence and when these's pearls do, it's difficult to match --- given the bodycolor and the dash of iridescence which is unique per individual pearl.

So when iridescence is sacrificed, it is sacrificed for luster and matching. I think a batch of polished pearls is still difficult to match (at least not much to be commercially viable), thus pearls are also bleached.... and pinked....

Anyway, usually freeform baroques have higher chances to have mind-blowing iridescence. This is just a guess but there maybe the waves in freeform baroques forms an irregular spiral instead of a neat, circullar spiral... there are portions that's more compact than other areas... I hope you get my drift. Wonder what it's like magnifying abolone pearls...

[Caitlin]

feeding your pearls to chickens/ducks, and others.

What exactly have you heard about this? How would it be accomplished? Have you ever known anyone who did this or have you done it?

I am serious about my questions, because we have thought this would be an urban legend as chickens etc have crops which woud prevent any stonelike object from passing through the entire digestive system.

Pearls would get stuck in the crop where the grinding action with tiny rocks and peices of oyster shell etc might polish the pearl but how would the harvester get them out of the crop? And why use a chicken or fowl at all? Isn't that like burning down the house to cook the piglet? Why not just tumble the pearls with bits of oyster shell instead?

[knotty panda]

Caitlin: Who are you quoting? Help me find it, please. Thanks!
-------------------
Ah, Caitlin, I found it. Interesting discussion. My thoughts turn not toward newly harvested pearls or naturals getting a "face-lift" but towards those pearls under the sea for hundreds of years in the lead box with only sea silt to protect them. Will they need pealing, polishing, etc. to recover their luster and iridescence? Did they lose those attributes? What about color?

[Caitlin]

I found this article by mistake, but maybe it is relevent....

[CortezPearls]

Originally Posted by Caitlin Williams

What exactly have you heard about this? How would it be accomplished? Have you ever known anyone who did this or have you done it?

I am serious about my questions, because we have thought this would be an urban legend as chickens etc have crops which woud prevent any stonelike object from passing through the entire digestive system.

Pearls would get stuck in the crop where the grinding action with tiny rocks and peices of oyster shell etc might polish the pearl but how would the harvester get them out of the crop? And why use a chicken or fowl at all? Isn't that like burning down the house to cook the piglet? Why not just tumble the pearls with bits of oyster shell instead?

A have a book that contains text passages about the old pearl fisheries in the Sea of Cortez, some of the most interesting accounts are said to have come from one of the most famous Pearling entrepreneur: Manuel de Ocio. He was a soldier of Spain, deserted the Navy to fish for pearls here in my State: Sonora. He has "recipes" for "recovering" damaged pearls...this included feeding them to chickens for "peeling", placing the pearls in "cebo de riñonada de res" (the fat around a cow's kidneys) to improve luster, and a few more. Can't remember them all now...and it was written in olde Caftillian (old Spanish). He never stated "Why" he did what he did.

I am a biologist, so this is what I think:
For birds (chickens/fowl): these birds ingest little stones to help in grinding down food in their stomachs. This grinding plus stomach acid (very gentle, actually) would have been able to do a bit of peeling on a pearl's damaged outer layers.

Cebo de Riñonada: Fat in this weather quickly becomes oil. Oil can nurture a pearl, give it extra shine and protect it from dehydration.

[CortezPearls]

Originally Posted by Caitlin Williams

Pearls would get stuck in the crop where the grinding action with tiny rocks and peices of oyster shell etc might polish the pearl but how would the harvester get them out of the crop? And why use a chicken or fowl at all? Isn't that like burning down the house to cook the piglet? Why not just tumble the pearls with bits of oyster shell instead?

Yes, but then again...these are chickens: Food!!! So you kill the chicken, obtain the pearls...make some Chicken Soup for the Pearl Hearted person.

[CortezPearls]

Originally Posted by perlas

A 40x loupe? I better check again. I just haven't really thought I'd see a lot in pearls than in transparent gemstones. I'd probably get more luck in a pteria mabe to see the spirals although I do have unpolished pearls...

Anyway, usually freeform baroques have higher chances to have mind-blowing iridescence. This is just a guess but there maybe the waves in freeform baroques forms an irregular spiral instead of a neat, circullar spiral... there are portions that's more compact than other areas... I hope you get my drift. Wonder what it's like magnifying abolone pearls...

Sorry I forgot to mention I am incredibly MIOPIC. This is like having an incorporated Microscope (which comes really handy when you work with pearls, but at a terrible disadvantage when trying to find a soap bar in your bathtub) so I can SEE more...does anyone else that works with pearls (on this forum) have the same "advantage"?? Have you seen that this is true for you as well?? Maybe a person with normal eyesight needs more help.

And I agree with you: Baroques offer more in the form of iridescence...the surface does act just like the images you have shared with us. Thus, if the spirals are on a bumpy or uneven surface, the more chaotic the interferrence effect.

[Caitlin]

For birds (chickens/fowl): these birds ingest little stones to help in grinding down food in their stomachs. This grinding plus stomach acid (very gentle, actually) would have been able to do a bit of peeling on a pearl's damaged outer layers.

So what do you do-kill the chicken to get the pearls out of the crop before the gizzard crumbles them to powder, if indeed they can pass the crop to the gizzard at all?

I have raised chickens, ducks, geese for most of the past 40 some years and stepped in it more times than I care to remember and collected it for compost. I never seen grit of any size come out the other end. It is always a squooshy thick liquid.

We have eaten many of our fowl and clean out the crop as part of it. I find oyster shell and medium pieces of sand 1-2mm or so in the crops. Never even found a marble sized anything in the crop. Why would a pearl pass through the system when the grit won't?
You would have to jam a pearl of any size down the bird's throat because a chicken wouldn't pick up any object larger than the grit size it likes.

Your old pearl maestro ...I do have respect for him, but, I would want to see what his style is in reporting other aspects of pearling before I believe this one. Does he give instructions on how to place the pearl in the chicken and how to retrieve it?

I really think this one is a yard yarn, like some of the stories I've heard the old horse maestro/vacqueros repeat about horses- now that I said that I can't think of an example, but I hope you know what I mean. The ones who tell yarns really like to tell them and a few large fish always seem to creep in......

Honestly if I am wrong, I need to quit belaboring this point, but I really think this one is an urban, er, rural, er, sea story.

[Caitlin]

Yes, but then again...these are chickens: Food!!! So you kill the chicken, obtain the pearls...make some Chicken Soup for the Pearl Hearted person.

How many pearls per chicken? It surely can't be an everyday occurance because one necklace worth of pearls would decimate an entire flock unless you put several in each chicken. If you do that, you are grinding pearl against pearl with grit--why put it in the chicken at all?

Nothing personal, I am just taking the view that this is an urban legend and that no one actually has first hand knowledge of using this technique with real pearls in real fowl.

Chickens have crops and gizzards instead of a stomach. What kind of stomach acid does a crop and/or a gizzard produce? I was under the impression they were a sack and a muscle ...... By the time the food is excreted, it is so nitrogenous, it burns plants and should be composted before deliberately applying to plants. I really wonder how a pearl lying in a pile of chicken poop would fare..........

[Valeria101]

Originally Posted by Caitlin Williams

What kind of stomach acid does a crop and/or a gizzard produce? I was under the impression they were a sack and a muscle ......

Not quite [ you should see my Mam's face while explainig... 'What's that forum of yours about anyway ??!?" ]. And that makes me think that pearls wouldn't survive at all.

Originally Posted by Caitlin Williams

So what do you do-kill the chicken to get the pearls out of the crop before the gizzard crumbles them to powder, if indeed they can pass the crop to the gizzard at all?

Your old pearl maestro ...I do have respect for him, but...

The story reminds me a bit about the Spanish chronicles of emerald testing with a hammer (unless that's a legend of a legend too).

I would imagine that only small pearls would get to and stop in the gizzard (like those lil' stones might). But they better be small. And then, they'd get rubbed against smooth pebbles and washed in some acidic juice (Ph 3.6 - 4.4 - apparently) rich with components meant to break down proteins and keratin specifically.

Would imagine that should dig though conchiolin (a keratin, right?) and break the depleted nacre layers... Which starts to make sense, considering those pearls stained by dull, tinted proteinaceous areas. However, MOP is so sensitive to acid, I wonder how much difference the other properties of whatever bio-chemistry involved could make, relative to just dipping pearls in acid and watch them being destroyed

Can't make up my mind whether the respective pearl-treatment was described to encourage competing others to destroy their pearls (as in the emerald story) or what then ???

Keeping in mind that one written document in the 1700s (right? Or.. when do you think this story might have strated?) had about as much impact as the potter books today (relatively, of course). So one could expect effective manipulation with a relatively solly story (unlike today ??!? LOL!).

Just a thought...

[CortezPearls]

Really, I don't know most of the answers, because I've never followed those "ole pearler's recipes" anyway. The only one I tried was the "kidney fat"...and it is just like using mineral oil, which is cleaner and doesn't smell bad.
The book doesn't state how many pearls per chicken, nor when to feed it to them (breakfast, lunch or dinner...care for brunch?) nor any other facts...it is like an old recipee book, but written by a Spanish Soldier in the 18th Century. There is also another one on how to bleach pearls and to extract the tiny seed pearls (morralla).

As Caitlin states: it could very well be just another "Pearling Myth" (instead of "Urban/Rural Legend"). To me it kind of makes sense, but I would not risk a good pearl. Maybe with a very bad one...it could be interesting to try it, but I can imagine my children crying because mean old dad wants to kill the poor little chicken for his mean experiments (Yes! Science is a cruel mistress).

At this point we can only try to figure out De Osio's motivations...he is no longer here to answer these questions. His life was cut short when thieves came during the night to steal his pearl treasure, he was not able to pass on his knowledge on pearls. We will probably never know.

[pernula]

The story reminds me a bit about the Spanish chronicles of emerald testing with a hammer (unless that's a legend of a legend too).

This was mentioned in Victoria Finley's book "Jewels: A Secret History." I do not remember all the details, but at one point some people did believe emerald was to be hard as diamond. The dealers used this myth to "test" emerald, and when the emerald broke, they were able to claim that it was not real emerald and offered low prices (i.e., they knew the myth to be not true but used that to their advantage). Finley is a good writer and researcher, I would believe her.

This is an aside: there was some discussion of polishing old natural pearls. I really hope whatever money they get out of the pearls and other treasures that was in the sunken ship transporting treasures from South and Central America back to Spain, they would give at least some back to the people of South and Central America. I don't know about the history of that particular ship, but a lot of treasure was taken by force or cunning or unfair prices. It is only fair to give some money back. They need it too.

Just my two cents.

Regards,
pernula