One site I found says Tridacna gigas can live up to 40 years.
Posted on 01/30/2005 2:31:56 PM PST by wagglebee
Legend has it the so-called Pearl of Allah was created as a symbol of peace 2,500 years ago in ancient China. To Victor Barbish, the 14-pound gem has been nothing but a big headache.
The football-sized grayish lump has been tied to enough greed, drama and intrigue to rival any Agatha Christie mystery, including two contract killings and a court fight that ended with one of the largest jury awards of its type in Colorado history.
"It draws the wrong type of people," said Barbish, the pearl's majority owner who lives in Colorado Springs. "It's only a pearl. It has a nice history. It was made to do something good, apparently, but what it's been drawing, it's been terrible."
Barbish says he kept the pearl in a Denver bank vault and a series of safe deposit boxes over the years, but he won't disclose its present location, even though he'd like to unload the gem to a museum or library.
How the pearl wound up in Colorado is quite a tale - an extraordinary one, if the rumors are to be believed. It is purportedly a former amulet of Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu, who is said to have carved his face and those of Confucius and Buddha into its surface. It was then planted in successively larger clams for generations; the convolutions on its surface resemble a human brain.
According to legend, the pearl was lost in a shipwreck centuries ago, then found in 1934 off Palawan Island in the Philippines by a diver who drowned when he reached into a huge clam to take it. The clam and the diver were pulled to shore and the island's chief, a Muslim who named the pearl, took possession.
About five years later, Wilburn Dowell Cobb saved the life of the chief's son and was given the pearl in gratitude. Cobb's heirs sold it in 1980 for $200,000 to Beverly Hills jeweler Peter Hoffman, who in turn sold part ownership to Barbish.
The two men formed the now-defunct World's Largest Pearl Co. Inc. in California and raised money by selling interests in the pearl to investors including Joe Bonicelli.
This is where the history turns bloody.
The pearl is now part of the largest wrongful-death judgment in Colorado history after a jury recently awarded $32.4 million to Bonicelli's adult children, who sued over the 1975 death of their mother in a contract killing.
After Bonicelli's death in 1998, police said they determined that the decades-old killing was done at his behest.
His children want the pearl sold so they can be paid the settlement they won against their father's estate. They plan to use the money to establish a foundation in their mother's name to help abused women and children, said their lawyer, Richard Tegtmeier.
Bonicelli left his estate to his youngest daughter, whom he fathered with his second wife. Neither her attorney nor Phillips' attorney returned calls.
Appraisers have valued the pearl at up to $60 million, Tegtmeier said.
He said further court action will be necessary to determine how his clients will receive their money - but it will have to include selling the pearl.
Barbish just wants to be rid of it, but on his terms.
"We are donating that pearl," he said. "We don't want the money for it. We want it to go to a charity for everybody to see and view, either a museum or a presidential library."
It looks like white-washed elephant crap.
OK, I'll take a stab at it.
Time appears linear to us. However, if seen from another vantage point, time may be non-linear. 1980 happened before 1975 for these people.
Author slowly removes tinfoil and grins!
Old chewing gum?
One site I found says Tridacna gigas can live up to 40 years.
you win.
Forgot to add the smile after the "you win" comment... :-)
You nailed it perfectly.
:-)
That's why they don't say that pearls are a girl's best friend.
I read a short story some time ago about how a pearl brought nothing but bad luck. The person who found it ended up tossing it back in the ocean.
Poorly written article. The contract was by the father on the mother. The father left his estate to his daughter by his second wife. The kids sued their father's estate (wrongful death) r.e. their step sister and won the suit. The estate consists of part ownership of the gem of a now defunct company.
Lawyers ....
My question is who is Phillips and where is the second contract killing ... I say again, poorly written article.
"Giant clams are well-suited for aquaculture because they derive a substantial portion of their nutrition from a symbiotic relationship with millions of photosynthetic algae called zooxanthelle (Symbiodinium microadriaticum) that live in their fleshy, prominent mantle."
That's what you just said in seven words. :-)
Ya learn something new every day!
Looks like the brain they carried around on the latter-day Mystery Science Theatre.
The only way to open a clam is to kill it. My uncle is a marine bioligist who runs a clam farm. Can't be around people like that without picking up tidbits of info.
.. the rest of the story
A share of the football-sized pearl was part of the estate of their late father, Joseph Bonicelli, who hired two men to kill his wife, Eloise.
The Bonicelli children sued for the assets of the estate of their father; Delfino Ortega, the gunman; and Tom Phillips, whose wife also was killed by Ortega
Ortega was convicted in 2001 of killing Eloise Bonicelli. That verdict was overturned on appeal, but he is serving a life prison sentence for his role in the 1972 murder of Ann Phillips, the wife of Tom Phillips.
The murder cases remained unsolved until 1998. Phillips was granted immunity in exchange for his cooperation with prosecutors.
... apparently the second contract was Phillips on his wife only related by the same hit man ... looks like some license is being taken by the media
I think somebody must have done a sling-shot around the sun, disrupting the space-time continuum, and creating a temporal distortion.
: )
We want it to go to a charity for everybody to see and view, either a museum or a presidential library."
It's an ugly freak of nature with an ugly past and an even uglier name...
Sounds like just the thing for the Clinton Presidential Library, home of the worlds largest pearl.
"The Pearl of Monica".
That is one ugly pearl.
I once worked for a firm where someone had a large aquarium. Somebody came in to clean it one day, and the aquarium broke and flooded the office. I think they managed to save some of the fish.
Me, I just have a cat; fortunately, he doesn't require cleaning, chemicals, or temperature regulation. :-p
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