I just want to make very clear, since I brought the subject up- again- that I think the gem labs are very mistaken when they label some of Tom's pearls as "Keshi". I certainly do not understand the science of that. The pearls come from the waters around Sulu and I don't think they have ever cultured pearls there.
They do culture SS pearls in the Philippines. The only way the scenario that the GIA paints when a pearls is declared a keshi can go, is to assume the people who culture pearls, find large round keshi and instead of declaring them, they sneak them off to Sulu to be "found" by fishermen who sell to prince, Datu, Dr Sir Tom, as natural. Something really stinks, here and until I see some paper that can prove scientifically which are natural pearls and which are keshi, I don't blame Tom for taking an end run around them. It really messes with his business to have to go through the GIA and get certified as having some farmed pearls.
After all, what he has are enormous solid nacre pearls which did not grow on farms in another country, then get disappeared from the aboveboard farm and smuggled out to a conspirator who can get them sold as natural then, eventually pay the grower more than he could have gotten by just saying, "these are perfectly round keshi of sizes as you have never seen, before. He spent thousands of dollars to get his pearls certified, but after a couple of years of "This one is a keshi, that one is natural, that one is a keshi, this one is a natural", I would probably start my own lab- or maybe take them to Bahrain, or just stand behind them, myself, as Tom does.
His stance does not put him in favor with the GIA crowd- and its offsprouts, but perhaps, they are the ones who are wrong. I sure would like to see a defense of their position!!!!! In any case, he has the biggest, best, modern solid nacre pearl collection around and the time and resources to dispose of it properly, which for the sake of his adopted country, should be at the highest prices possible. Calling those pearls keshi just doesn't do them justice.
Of course the big auction houses call the keshi natural pearls, anyway. With confusion such as this reigning, why are the labs so definite in their assessments?
As you already know, I am quit willing to eat crow when I take a position away from the prevailing one and am proved wrong, but in order to prove me wrong, someone has to solve this problem, and that is the outcome I desire, whether I am right or wrong. So to take the contrary stance is not a position many pearls professionals would want to do, but I have nothing to lose if I am wrong, amateur that I am. I was the first to call the Pearl of Allah a big hoax and I sure was right on that one. Though I took a bit of flack from certain forum members, who still don't like me to this day, Jeremy came out on my side and helped me get to the bottom of it. Though I was the second one to call Zeide a big hoax, I was the one with all the ammo, (a long memory) once I realized how wrong I had been.
BTW Tom has a wonderful sense of humor and is actually a rather humble man to talk to, so I know he doesn't mind me laughingly use a variety of honorifics for him, first, because I will never get them straight and second, I am sure he deserves every single one.
