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The most frequent question we are asked is “what
is the most valuable coral quality?” It is not
easy to answer this question, because of the supply-and-demand
law. There were periods in which a very well-known coral
type, the “angel skin” of a very delicate
pink, was considered of poor value, while today it is
one of the most precious – and rare – types.
Just think that our great-grandfathers used to call it “boké”,
as we still do; in japanese “boké” means
stupid, meaningless. When we think of coral, we
mainly imagine red coral. Too many elements – as
we have also seen in the mythology section identify coral
with the red colour. Well, when we talk about red coral,
we mean Mediterranean Coral (Scientific name: “corallum
rubrum”). It is present in all the Mediterranean
area, particularly concentrated in the seas of Sardinia,
Sicily, Calabria, Campania, Latium, Tuscany, Liguria. In
some of these areas, the excessive exploitation together
with pollution have made it very rare. In the remaining
mediterranean areas, we find it in Greece, Jugoslavia,
, Corsica, France, Spain and the in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia.
The coral of these areas is always of the same type: Corallium
rubrum. It does not always look the same though: the size
varies, as well as the depth of the red.
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| The main harvesting areas in the Pacific an in the Mediterranean.
The red spots show the places where coral is present. |
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| So we find that the coral harvested in France, Corsica,
Spain is small, and of a beutiful dark red, while the coral
harvested in Northern Africa, mainly in Algeria and Tunisia
is big, light red, and extraordinarily comacat. What about
italian coral? The most famous is the one from Sardinia:
lively red, nice, big: it is not rare to find branches
of 1000/1500 gr. o weight, 40/50cm high. Coral is not only
harvested in the Mediterranean, but also in the seas of
Japan, Taiwan, Pescadores Islands, Midway, up to Hawaii,
where more or less 15 years ago a huge coral reef, onion
pink, of poor quality, between 1000 and 2000 m. depth.
(hence the name “deep sea”. The asian coral
colours vary from white to deep red, but the most common
colour, heavily present on the market is salmon pink. The
branches of the eastern corals are stronger than the mediterranean
ones, and can even reach 70/80 cm of height. Bigger ones
are very rare. Rajola is presently showing, at the Oceanografic
museum in the Principality of Monaco, a japanese coral
branch of excellent quality, Satsuma; it is about 1 meter
high and weighs 10 kg. Following you will find the descritpions
of the coral type we most frequently work. Not all of them
are important though. |
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