How did this happen?

[Valeria101]

Wasn't sure where to start this thread and it ended here just because the answer to the following question seemed likely to come from he farming side.

Here the object:

Now, for anyone who has never looked into pearl nucleation (like myself) that looks like the nacre imprint of a thin, huge sac wrapped around a large round nucleus. Much like a lunch bag with an apple in the bottom.

Detailed images taken from every direction are to be found down the link above the picture.

How can this happen? How come the shape and size of the pearl sac (if that's what it is) is so different from the nucleus. especially with such a large bead involved?

The thing looks so striking, it just begged the question. The nice, tame round ones are so... unproblematic. FleaBay has a way of bringing up these 'pearling exhibits' I wouldn't know what to do with but take them apart and look under the hood

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PS:Hope the seller doesn't mind this thread - it is definitely meant as a positive comment. Otherwise, I'll be ready to repent and take if off.

 

[pattye]

Awhile back there was a discussion of "fireball" pearls, I think this is a variation of that. Jeremy knows quite a lot about them. Hope he will reply. You can also try a forum search. That pearl is pretty unusual looking!!!
Pattye

 

[Valeria101]

Aha! A 'tadpole' search produced a couple of threads about nucleated freshwater and an attempt at explaining what's up - nucleating under the mantle.

Why didn't I think of it?

It must have been the claim that this is saltwater (which can still be, for what that matters and what I can tell), the SIZE and the very exaggerated tadpole profile just made it look different to me.

'Guess that if hasty nucleation could produce that shape in freshwater pearls, nothing says it couldn't in any other shell. Why not. SS pearl attempts are all over the place, not all high tech or anything.

Crazy pearl that! Almost wanted to get some quick idea of what could be done with it and the like Too bad Halley just went by recently

 

[jshepherd]

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.

 

[Bodecia]

Flameballs please sell to ME!!!!!!

Flameballs please sell to ME!!!!!!

Hi Jeremy,

If you have any Flameball Pearls left. please offer them to me. Love them, can't get enough of them. They are wonderful for designing with.

Huh, huh, can you sell some to me....... please

Bodecia

 

[Ragnorak]

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.

I'm can't say whether it's gases but I do believe it maybe due to the initial incision into the animal not healing at what could be considered a normal rate. Possibly due to an imprecise seeding or because of the conidtion of oyster when it was seeded.

Though I have noticed that unless the tails are facing a certain way they have a good chance of killing the oyster as they grow. And even when the tails could be considered to be facing in a correct direction, they can break through the oyster's flesh and cause massive damage on the way out.

 

[CortezPearls]

What we've seen in our Black-Lips (Pinctada mazatlanica) and Rainbow-Lips (Pteria sterna) is that if the "tunnel" we made to introduce the nucleus/tissue does not close fast enough (before the mantle tissue grafts in), then the pearl sac grows following the shape of both the bead AND this "cavity". I don't know if I am explaining myself...I've attached a simple diagram that will hopefully help.

What we've seen is that when we behave like "gluttons" (when we've been inserting nuclei in sizes between 2.9 to 3.3 bu) in our oysters THEN we have a larger number of flame-pearls, tadpoles or "Maracas" (that is how we call them ).

 

[Ragnorak]

What we've seen is that when we behave like "gluttons" (when we've been inserting nuclei in sizes between 2.9 to 3.3 bu) in our oysters THEN we have a larger number of flame-pearls, tadpoles or "Maracas" (that is how we call them ).

Have you noticed a corelation between the size of the bead and size of mantle tissue used?

 

[CortezPearls]

You must always use a piece of mantle tissue in a correct proportion of the size of the bead...if the bead is smaller than the mantle you will be cartain (100%) to obtain a baroque pearl.
A smaller piece of tissue will give you a much rounder or symmetrical shape, but it is easier for the mantle to become absorbed by the surrounding tissues (if smaller than 3 x 3 mm) or that a pearl sac will develop only partially.

 

[Ragnorak]

(if smaller than 3 x 3 mm)

You use tissue up to that size? What are you seeding? Dinner plates?

 

[jshepherd]

I finally have the answer to the fireballs! All of the answers, believe it or not.

For the past 2 days (I am in Zhuji) we have been researching the science behind fireballs. Yesterday we came close interviewing the chairman of Grace Pearl for several hours. But today we hit the jackpot. We were able to interview a farmer who grows nothing but bead nucleated freshwater. He has been farming freshwater for 17 years, and bead-nuked since the technology arrived. We were able to get the full story.

By the way, I am leading a small delegation from the GIA on a tour of China's freshwater and akoya farms. It is going to be nearly a two week trip. The GIA is rewriting the 'Pearl' course, and I am helping them with the freshwater and akoya sections.

I am not certain how to present the information on the fireballs, but I need to compile everything before simply spilling the beans. But what I can say is that everyone is wrong. Wrong in how they are created, and why they have a tail. Everyone writing about the bead-nukes from China were wrong as well. Remember the debate sparked by Antionette Maitlins and encouraged by Fred Ward and Pearl World, and trumpeted by Z. Erskine? All wrong...!

Anyway, we are only 3 days into this. I am hoping it even gets better, but I am guessing this is one of the highlights of this trip.

 

[salem]

Sounds fascinating!! I just bought a book by Antointte Maitlins, I have found a lot of it interesting so far, so I hope not too much is wrong.

But mostly have read the stories about famous pearls though.

 

[sleight]

Oh that's so not fair!!! You can't write something like that Jeremy and leave us all hanging!!! I'm dying to know - so hurry! Or at least give us a hint. I love the unique shape of each fireball and they have become some of my favorite pearls to use. It'll be great to have a better explanation of them for my customers.

Wish I were on that trip.......

 

[jshepherd]

I had a discussion with Doug Fiske this evening over dinner. He is a director of course development at the GIA, and is currently rewriting the “Pearls” course - I am traveling with him and a GIA photographer. We both have a keen interest in the bead-nuke story, simply because there are so many stories going around. This was the perfect opportunity to find the truth because we had several interviews set up with individual farm managers (the people really on the ground).

We both realize that this information has not come out yet, and the information that is available (and was reported on 5-6 years ago) is all wrong.
This thread in particular from post 13; https://www.pearl-guide.com/forum/showthread.php?t=624
‘Z’ was completely wrong, and everything she said (that did not come straight from Strack) appears to be 100% fabricated. I actually took that entire thread to dinner this evening and both had a good laugh.

What Antionette was wrong about was that there was any volume of bead nucleated pearls coming out of China, and that they were round. Apparently she had found one at a show in Tucson and came to a faulty conclusion that this was happening - even though she had never been to a farm in China...

So! We are considering co-authoring a report in Gems and Gemology. We will discuss this with them when we return. If they say yes, we will publish that and post here at the same time. If they say no, it will only go right here!

 

[boo]

Ha! sleight is right - it is so cruel to tantalize us and make us wait - but we know it will be worth waiting for...

Just wanted to point out that the link in post #14 needs the hyphen between "pearl" and "guide" to link to the correct post (just like in "pearl-guide.com")

 

[perlas]

ok.. i will grasp at straws.

1) having seen so many pearls, are these beaded FW fireball pearls really freshwater? aren't they attempts for a bigger nucleus in saltwater? they just look so different. the fireballs have the "pop" luster rather than the orient or water. i'm expecting that the tail would at least have the luster, orient, and water of the tissue-activated CFWPs.

2) aren't the farmers making the mollusks secrete more nacre too fast, too soon thus the tails? i have seen fireball pearls with long tails but at the same time exposing a portion of the nucleus (not exposing the nucleus in such a way that the pearl was peeled but it looks like the mollusk wasn't really able to "coat" the nucleus thouroughly).

just some far off thoughts stemming out of frustration that jeremy is hanging a carrot under our noses!

 

[purepearls]

The only thing I can think of that would cause this is the manner in which the mollusk is nucleated. If the farmer is able to control his harvests by producing fireball pearls, then he is manipulating something during the nucleation process. I can't think of what would be manipulated besides the bead nucleus or mantle tissue.

 

[Caitlin]

Hi Jeremy

I read your post with interest. Is Steve Bloom going to visit any part of this tour? This is a perfect Steve Bloom kind of story.

How do I know that? I got his book, Postville:A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America from Amazon and I love it. He is sensitive and perceptive and brings fairness to his work. He is a trained in and worked in journalism -and now teaches it, so his writing is clear and clean. He really has a keen eye and ear for nuances of language, phrases and their meanings to the users. He is a "participatory anthropologist" or something like that, because he is involved with 2 foreign cultures and he knows it. Whatever it is, it works in his writing.

I now realize the fine dinner with you, Doug and Stephen was really quite a conclave- a cosmic confluence. Anyway, see if you can get him in on some of this tail story, so he can write about it in his pearl book.

For P-G readers:
Stephen Bloom is not into pearls, per se, but into the stories generated by pearls, pearlman, pearl mongers, pearl pealers, stories of people, and places with pearls as the McGuffin. After reading his descriptions of Iowa, I know he can and will, ace whatever part of China he gets to see. I never thought anyone could make Iowa interesting, but he did and I now have a completely renovated view of it through Postvllle.

I am looking forward to his description of China, the land, the food, maybe even the toilets... and everything else he sees in China, because it will be one treasured read for pearl lovers.
(You are welcome, Steve, you deserve a plug).

 

[jshepherd]

Sorry this is going to be short. I am in Xuwen, and Internet access is very intermitten.

1) having seen so many pearls, are these beaded FW fireball pearls really freshwater? aren't they attempts for a bigger nucleus in saltwater? they just look so different. the fireballs have the "pop" luster rather than the orient or water. i'm expecting that the tail would at least have the luster, orient, and water of the tissue-activated CFWPs

No, they are definitely freshwater, and only cultured in the Sanjiaofanbang shell - H.c. They do not all "pop", this is rare, just not as rare as the rounds. This has to do with the same thin film interference that creates orient in true baroques. There are simply a lot of difference surfaces from which create light diffraction from the linnear edges of nacre platelets.

2) aren't the farmers making the mollusks secrete more nacre too fast, too soon thus the tails? i have seen fireball pearls with long tails but at the same time exposing a portion of the nucleus (not exposing the nucleus in such a way that the pearl was peeled but it looks like the mollusk wasn't really able to "coat" the nucleus thouroughly).

This is not a factor. Nacre deposition does not change.

The only thing I can think of that would cause this is the manner in which the mollusk is nucleated. If the farmer is able to control his harvests by producing fireball pearls, then he is manipulating something during the nucleation process. I can't think of what would be manipulated besides the bead nucleus or mantle tissue.

No. Fireballs are created in the pursuit of rounds, which are so rare that even a strand would be extremely difficult to produce. They have just become popular of late. There is one very, very important part of their production that everyone has missed, save what was briefly touched on by Akamatsu and Li in their report 5 years ago - but even that was experimental at the time.

Oh, by the way. Pearls used as nculei... total urban ledgend. Never happened, never could happen. It is impossible...

 

[jshepherd]

PS
Stephen Bloom is not going to pop up on this trip. This type of research is a bit different than what he was here for. He would like the fireball story, though.