Quetlin Caitlin Williams I am a retired counselor, age 75 in 2016, from Tucson AZ, but still write articles and keep a few blogs.
I have contributed to the Pearl of Lao Tsu page and originated the Mary Ellen Pleasant article, before I learned most of the "facts" in it are false,or at least have no documentation. I am one of the few scholars interested in the truth about this woman, not the scandals.
I am known as a expert on pearls and pearl history. I co-wrote the Cultured Pearl of America Association's online course in pearls known as "Pearls as One", a course for jewelers to learn about pearls, though anyone can take the course through Pearl-Guide.com if you have 50 posts or more. I have been an admin and moderator on Pearl-Guide.com for 12 years as of 12/2016. My pearl mentor is Jeremy Shepherd, possibly the most important name in cultured pearls for his contributions to the growth of the cultured pearl industry.
My particular favorite of my articles about pearls is my expose of the lies in the Pearl of Lao Tsu article in Wikipedia. http://www.pearl-guide.com/forum/content.php?76-The-Pearl-of-Allah-The-Facts-the-Fiction-and-the-Fraud The Wikipedia article was written by the people who own, and hope to sell, the pearl for its exaggerated price. The claim is the pearl of Lao Tsu is from China and the only one like it in the world. In fact it was found off Palawan in the Philippines in 1934, and several others just like it or larger have been found since, yet all of the finders hope to make big bucks selling their pearls. The truth is there is no market for Tridacna gigas pearls and the pearls are illegal to ship out of the Philippines anyway, as they are from an endangered species. We get reports of such findings regularly on Pearl-Guide.com at least 6 others, so far, both fake and real. When we get word of such as pearl from Palawan, I always advocate for the people of Palawan to make them a local treasure and tourist attraction rather than trying to sell them. I liken them to the Sahuaros of Arizona, which die when transplanted away from Arizona- Not one has survived. The Sahuaros are a local treasure and tourist attraction. The same is true of Tridacna gigas pearls, They "Die" when they leave the Philippines and lose all their value. In fact, the pearl of Allah may have shattered when it was drilled to carbon test it. No one has actually seen it since the 1960's, when that operation was supposed to have occurred It wasn't even seen, even in the court battle in CO of a few years ago produced it in person. I will happily eat crow, if it ever surfaces in person again. If it does, I think it should be returned to the family that never got paid for it when it sold- because it has never "sold", it has only been passed around on "Memo" with promises to pay when it sells- which will never happen because if it surfaces, there will be a huge numbers of claims on it, only to find it is worth nothing outside of Palawan.
I also write and research about dogs, specifically the local Southwest Chihuahuas which were the original parental stock of the AKC Chihuahuas. Genetic testing keeps proving these 10 pound local dogs are "chihuahuas", though I call them "Techichis", a name assigned to them as the "miserable curs of the Northern Barbarians", by the Aztecs, an eon ago. I have uncovered the factual history of the AKC Chihuahua using books by dog people from the 1920's through the present, especially John Watson's, who was a founder of the AKC. The well-known Dog genetic testing Lab refers people to my blog on techichi dogs when they get one of those oversized 10 pound "deer" Chihuahuas to test. Essentail, the genetics agree with my historical findings, that the techichi is a dog with Native American genetics, that did not perish as a (landrace) breed, after the Conquest.