Pearl of Allah, Fact; Pearl of Lao Tsu, Fiction

that's great Caitlin - have you tried or considered trying to amend the wikipedia article with the correct information?
 
Hot damn! We're footnotes! KC at one point in a galaxy far, far away, someone did make some changes to the article and Wiki got involved. The personalities have changed since that time so maybe there could be a revisit. I like seeing the back of the pearl. I've never seen that pic before. Puts the question of whether it truly is a baroque to rest. Cobb in 1939 toured with a clam shell and pointed to a place in the shell where the pearl was removed. Had that been the case, the pearl would not have been a baroque. Jeremy always said, where's the shell? Shouldn't this be a two-part deal?
 
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Hot damn! We're footnotes!
A lot of my work was tertiary research, so I guess citing the article makes the writer doing quadruple-ary research. jajaja.:D

I looked at Wikipedia recently. The main person who defended the website, fla-riptide, has been totally disillusioned and joined our side. He wrote to me defending it and I wrote back showing him all the lies. He agreed with me! He was managing Barbish's website and he took it down. No one has put it back up. I heard Barbish has an ally who is defending it now, but I have seen no evidence of that!

It might be time for someone to work on the wiki site. Maybe a little bit at a time.
 
It has been noted that the Pearl of Allah resembles a human brain.

Allah's Femur has just appeared from beneath Indonesian waters.
 

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I just reread this, for fun this lazy Sunday AM.

Barbish's estate is still unsettled, the Bonicelli children are still waiting. The judge is silent. The pearl is unseen and has not been seen for at least 40 years. The Wiki article is still full of B-S........

I think it is time to revisit this thread.

Look where this link goes now: http://www.pearlforpeace.org/
 
I dunno, Caitlin, people that get in touch with you but won't let you publish interviews, or pics in substantiation, or only offer pics of current family members, and no pics of prior family members kicking around the pearl ca 1937...

And wouldn't kicking around that concretion feel a lot like kicking a brick?

The story of the thievery sounds plausible, but the lack of people willing to stand up for attribution leads me to think they're unwilling to stand up and be fingered for fraud. It'll be real interesting to see how this plays out.

I see red flags bobbing up all over. I'm glad you're wary, and grateful for your scholarship.
 
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Caitlin,

Have not thought of this thread in quite some time. Been thinking Caitlin, ( be afraid, I am;) you could write a pamphlet on the myth & legend of this pearl. Wonder If Alice had this much trouble in Wonderland. I too am glad you are wary.

Cheers
 
So, the Pisis never got back to you? I didn't realize that post was so old.
 
Lisa,

I have a feeling we will not hear much until this pearl or another one on the super large size scale goes up for auction. Seems ownership & missing link claims come out of the woodwork, when there is press to be had or a name to be made. Sad really. Feel that only Destroys the mystery & allure of the piece.

Ash
 
Ash, You were there and were a huge thinker in unraveling this mystery! I am so glad you are still thinking!

Yes, I still get an occasional feedback on this story or some piece of it. I know a bit more than I have permission to share, but when it does hit, somewhere, sometime, I will have a freaking good time jumping on it!

I always accepted that 200k changed hands when Hoffman and Barbish bought the pearl. In the past few months, this story passed into my third stomach of digesting every detail I came into contact with. One thing that bubbled up, was that 200k was the price, but in keeping with the rest of that story, little to none of it was ever paid out. So, my educated, digested guess is that no more than a token amount of cash ever changed hands because there were contingencies that could never be met in order for the family to get the money, it had to be resold, and it never was. Knowing Barbish, the Cobb family was lucky to get 5k.

So, I think a realistic amount of value on that pearl would be as a notorious specimen- the provenance being so hilarious. $12,500 would be an extravagant price. The best possible thing for Mario Barbish, Victor's son, (first heard of during the last court trial) to do is realize the pearl is worth nothing and to return it to the govt of the Philippines in the name of of Paglima Pisi family and to allow the full story as revealed in this forum, to be told. The person who writes the book or makes the documentary is the only one who will ever make money off this pearl. And that won't be much, unless it is a blockbuster.
 
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Caitlin,

It is the silliness & pettiness of what happens in the public/press as well as the games played for, lets face it, greed, that has become a turnoff with this piece for me. As far as thinking, I just get lucky with a detail once in a while. Not nearly the batman, detective, sleuth you are. Does this mean I should to make you a PG themed cape & caul and pearl adorn it. ;).
 
large pearl

large pearl

today agood friend of mine for 30 years called me and invited me to lunch. then he pull out some pictures of him holding a very large pearl (weight : 5.5 kilogram, diameter: 24 cm) that he said belong to his cousin Lexi, so I took the picture of his portrait holding that coconut size pearl. By the way his cousin discovered that huge pearl about six months ago at Likupang Dua Beach, North Sulawesi, Indonesia, and has been trying to sell it since then. Now It is in safe depositbox in Jakarta, He said he wanted to sell it for 22 million US Dollar. okay.. now how to find people who own that amount of money who wants to buy that pearl. Somebody told me to register the pearl in Bangkok in order for it to be valuable. Any info about this ?yosaku61@gmail.com
 
Caitlin,

It is the silliness & pettiness of what happens in the public/press as well as the games played for, lets face it, greed, that has become a turnoff with this piece for me. As far as thinking, I just get lucky with a detail once in a while. Not nearly the batman, detective, sleuth you are. Does this mean I should to make you a PG themed cape & caul and pearl adorn it. ;).

Hi Ash!
Yeah! That can be your next decades long project!!!! But remember, I am 70 (at this posting), so it will probably end up in a museum because I can't wear it due to having made a transition of some kind....!!!
 
today agood friend of mine for 30 years called me and invited me to lunch. then he pull out some pictures of him holding a very large pearl (weight : 5.5 kilogram, diameter: 24 cm) ... He said he wanted to sell it for 22 million US Dollar. okay.. now how to find people who own that amount of money who wants to buy that pearl. Somebody told me to register the pearl in Bangkok in order for it to be valuable. Any info about this ?yosaku61@gmail.com

OK kusuma- here it is with both barrels. Now pay attention. Your friend needs to give up his greed and this is why. S/he obviously based his price on the 66 million value claimed by the 'owners' of the Pearl of Allah. 22million is about 1/3rd of the appraised price, suitable for a pearl about one third the size- if you take the inflated lies given by the owners to newspaper reporters who never did their research.

1. No official agency ever appraised that pearl for any price. It has been a fraud since the get go and you would know it if you had read this thread.

2. Cobb made up the first estimate of 3 million in 1939 based on his fairy tale visit from "a member of the Lee family", which visit was a lie. We know that pearl was stolen/taken from Palawan- most likely with a promise to give money when it was sold.
Cobb tried to sell the pearl for the rest of his life- with no interest- let alone any takers. the entire story is in this thread.

3. when Cobb died, Hoffman/Barbish offered 200k, but only paid about $ 1k cash and the Cobb family never got another penny, so it was NOT sold for 200k, it was sold for 1k and a promise.

4.Barbish got his mitts on it and it has never been seen, since. Not in court- where only pieces of paper "appraising" it were offered. Not anywhere. It is know he made porcelain copies of the pearl and those are all that have been seen, since.

5. All subsequent evaluations were based on paper, not the pearl itself, and based on inflation since the 3million price in 1939. But since that price was phoney, the subsequent evaluations have been based on nothing, zero ,zilch- except greedy imaginations.

6. Barbish spent his entire life trying to sell the pearl- without one single taker or even any interest. No one ever offered $1,500 for it, which would have turned a profit for Hoffman/Barbish, let alone 1 million or the 66million the "value" supposedly ballooned to.

7. The pearl has not even been glimpsed since 1969 when Lee Sparrow supposedly appraised it. The lab claimed for this appraisal has no record of Lee Sparrow, let alone the appraisal and since it Should have been the most valuable item the lab ever appraised, that is a mighty fishy story in itself. My guess is it was NEVER appraised by anyone qualified to recognize it, because all such people worked for museums, not jewelers and that pearl is only a specimen from a gigas, not a jewel or gem.

7a. "Pearls" from gigas clams have no commercial value whatsoever. When museums acquire such things, they are generally gifts and written off by the donors, money rarely changes hands. This kind of pearl is not commercial and never has been.

8. The pearl of Allah itself, were it ever produced to public view again, might possibly be the largest such pearl ever found in a clam and thus retain its Guiness books of records value as a record breaking size and weight.

9. If that pearl were ever seen again, it would be hopelessly tied up in lawsuits and criminal retributions as per its long and twisted story and possibly someone could be found to buy it for its notoriety at some foolish price, for the publicity and scandal of all those years. But who would get the money? the Pisi family? the Cobb family? The children of the murdered women who got the claim? Hoffman, who declares he still owns some of it too? The Barbish family- who supposedly has physical possession of it? My prediction is that it would NEVER bring 66 million and what it would bring is token amounts of money to each party- especially after all the lawyer's fees, so NO WAY will any one in the world see that pearl again.

10. Those clam pearls, unless they are small and have flame structure are nothing but ugly concretions for which it is technically correct to call a pearl, but it will never be an item of jewelry, but only an ugly specimen.

11. Your friend needs to read, "The Pearl" by John Steinbeck and get ahold of his greed- or it will take him to the same ugly and awful places the pearl of Allah has taken its greedy owners- not one of which ever acquired it honestly.

12. I doubt anyone would pay 20k for your friend's pearl, let alone 22million -Augustus pearls' over-inflated prices aside. Some overpriced clam pearls were the first pearls I ever saw from Augustus and they influenced my opinion about the company, negatively, for years. The prices were not based on market value, but soley on the hyped-up value of the POA.

13. Wake up and smell the coffee. The only way to sell an ugly clam pearl (and some are NOT ugly) is to hype it or try to ride on the coattails of the hype over the Barbish pearl- which is worth nothing except, perhaps, adjusted for inflation amounts based on the $1,000 that EVER changed hands in sale. That would be far less than 20k value based on inflation alone. Add a few 100k for the notoriety and that is the max the pearl in question will ever see.

14.Greed can make you shake with anticipation, it can make your guts turn to water, and make you lose your principles, let alone your mind. Read the story of the POA because that is the moral. Tell your friend to get a grip. Maybe Augustus can consign it for him for 20K, but I promise, no one will ever buy the pearl for itself, only for the hype that someone can generate around it, so I hope Augustus makes your friend pay for the listing for the next 5 years, because it will never sell except as a curiosity.

I know you did not read the thread or the article before you posted on behalf of your friend, or you never would have thought that pearl was worth 1 million, let alone 100k.
 
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Caitlin, thank you for the lengthy and detail explanation. But I do still believe that the pearl worth more than a million dollar for the following reasoning:
First of all, it is very rare ,only a few of them we can find in the entire world.
Also just like diamonds, the bigger the more expensive, and as far as I know , people don't cut big chunk of diamond into smaller pieces , so this large pearl is more valuable as it is.
 
Who would pay a million dollars for it? No one has ever paid more than 1-3,000 dollars for the POA!!
Just saying it is worth money does not mean someone will buy it. Why would anyone want to buy it?
Technically, yes, it is a "pearl" but it is not a gemstone and never will be anything more than a lump of calcium carbonate- unless yours is perfectly round and has a flame structure to it.

I'll bet you will never get an offer for 1million dollars for it. Maybe a few thousands..... and that would be because one person is willing to pay that much.
So far, NO ONE has been willing to pay more than a couple grand for one of those pearls without a flame structure. The POA poisoned the water. People think it is worth millions, but that is nothing but hype, it has never actually sold for more than a1-3k in cash.

OK, see if anyone will buy it! It is an ugly calcareous concretion, NOT A PEARL! Who cares if one that size is rare? Except as a museum specimun and that would only be if it is donated....Museums do not have thousands of $$ to buy calcareous concretions...

I hear greed speaking.....
 
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