Abbey said:
Fossis- those are beautiful! Here on the eastern shore, Maryland-- over the winter, I found a site where I found a HEAP of shells- not just shells (it took me a couple minutes to figure it out) but shells which had been punched out for buttons! All conch-like shells- with the outer edge punched out in little circles- just like a paper punch to a cicle of paper! I was amazed! Must have been a button manufacturer of some sort-- which doesn't suprize me being so close to the ocean. But in the middle of nowhere...not expecting it. Took a fistfull of 'blanks' home for 'evidence'. And I remember motorcycling north between Kentucky Lake and Cumberland Lake. Stopped and camped near a fellow and his kids. He'd dived for mussles there-- apparently a huge (and blackmarket) demand for them in Asia-- and a lot of $$ to be had. I'd never seen such big beautiful mussle shells before!
Thanks for sharing your treasures. I love your posts
Ab
Thanks Abbey, I have a daughter named (Abby), I am
amazed that you could still find the shells that were punched
out after all these years, there was a lot of activity in the
gathering of shells for a lot of years, I never sold any, mine were
not right,(didn't break clean) like the ones they wanted.
They, (the Japanese) use a small round seed bead, made
from American shells to implant in their ocean clams, growing
the " cultured pearls" found in jewelry stores.
A man in TN, married a Japanese girl, & learned the art of
implanting, now he raises big colored pearls, suspended from
PVC pipes in his area, I saw a special on TV a few years back,
He turned down an offer of $50,000 for a strand of (pure)
pearls, found by his crew of divers over a 25 year period.
HH, Fossis..............
