title: Only Fools and Horses

text: Filming of the first series began in May 1981, and the first episode, "Big Brother", was transmitted on BBC One at 8.30 pm on 8 September that year. It attracted 9.2 million viewers and generally received a lukewarm response from critics. The viewing figures for the whole first series averaged at around 7 million viewers. According to an interview with John Challis in 2015, the viewing figure "today would be very good but in those days wasn't considered great at all, so it was sort of put on the back burner for a bit – no particular plans for a second series". The costumes for the first series were designed by Phoebe De Gaye. Del's attire was inspired by her going to car boot sales. She took Jason shopping in Oxford Street, and had him try a variety of suits. De Gaye purchased some gaily coloured Gabicci shirts, which were fashionable at the time and she thought "horrible". Del's rings and bracelet were made of fake gold and came from Chapel Market. Rodney's combat jacket came from the BBC's Costume Department, and De Gaye added a Yasser Arafat scarf purchased from Shepherd's Bush Market. De Gaye used Vaseline, make-up, and food to make Grandad's costume look dirty. The idea was that he never had his hat off, never dressed properly and usually had dirty pyjamas underneath his clothes.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: A second series was commissioned for 1982. This fared a bit better, and the first and second series had a collective repeat run in June 1983 in a more low-key time slot, but attracted a high enough viewing figure for Davies to commission a third series. From there, the show began to top the television ratings. Viewing figures for the fourth series were double those of the first. In early December 1984, during the filming of Series 4, Lennard Pearce suffered a heart attack and was taken to hospital. He died on 15 December, the day before he was due to return. Sullivan wrote Grandad's death into the series with the episode "Strained Relations" which featured Del and Rodney's goodbye to Grandad. According to Sullivan, recasting Grandad was considered disrespectful to Pearce by the team, so it was decided that another older family member was to be cast. Buster Merryfield was then cast as Grandad's brother Albert. The scenes from "Hole in One" that featured Pearce were re-filmed with Merryfield.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: Midway through the filming of the fifth series, Jason told Sullivan that he wished to leave the show in order to further his career elsewhere. Sullivan thus wrote "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?", which was intended to be the final episode and would see Del accepting a friend's offer to set up business in Australia, leaving Rodney and Albert behind. Plans were made for a spin-off entitled "Hot-Rod", which would have followed Rodney's attempts to survive on his own with help from Mickey Pearce, but leaving open the prospect of Del's return. Jason then changed his mind, and the ending of the episode was changed to show Del rejecting the offer.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: Sullivan had a tendency to write scripts that were too long, meaning a lot of good material had to be cut. Shortly before filming of the sixth series began, he and Jason requested that the show's time slot be extended and it was agreed to extend its running time to 50 minutes. This required a 40 per cent increase in the show's budget, and coincided with the show's becoming one of the BBC's most popular programmes. Robin Stubbs became the costume designer for the sixth series, and was responsible for getting Del's attire to match his new yuppy image. His new suits cost around £200 each and were purchased from Austin Reed in Regent Street. The rest came from stores such as Tie-Rack and Dickins & Jones. His jewellery was replaced each series because it was very cheap (the rings with "D" cost 50p each).


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: The seventh series aired in early 1991. Jason and Sullivan were involved with other projects, and it was confirmed that there were no plans for a new series. Despite this, the show continued in Christmas specials until 1993. Sullivan nonetheless wanted a final episode to tie up the show. In late 1996, three more one-hour episodes were filmed, to be broadcast over Christmas 1996. All three were well received and, due to the ending, were assumed to be the last. The show made a return in Christmas 2001 with the first of three new episodes which were shot together but ultimately broadcast over three consecutive Christmases from 2001 until 2003. Despite rumours of further episodes, in a 2008 interview, Sullivan was quoted as saying: "There will not be another series of "Only Fools And Horses". I can say that. We had our day, it was wonderful but it is best to leave it now". Though Sullivan died in 2011, it returned for a special Sport Relief episode in 2014.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: "Only Fools and Horses" has separate theme songs for the opening and closing credits, "Only Fools and Horses" and "Hooky Street", respectively. The original theme tune was produced by Ronnie Hazlehurst and recorded on 6 August 1981 at Lime Grove Studios. Alf Bigden, Paul Westwood, Don Hunt, John Dean, Judd Proctor, Eddie Mordue, and Rex Morris were hired to play the music. The tune was changed after the first series, and the new one was written by John Sullivan (he disliked the tune for the first series, and his new one explained the show's title), and Hazlehurst conducted it. It was recorded at Lime Grove on 11 May 1982, with musicians John Horler, Dave Richmond, Bigden, and Proctor. Sullivan had intended Chas & Dave to sing it because they had enjoyed success with the "Rockney" style, a mixture of rock n' roll and traditional Cockney music. Sullivan was persuaded to do it himself by Ray Butt. Despite the creation of a new theme tune, the original one remained in occasional use. Chas & Dave did later contribute to the show, performing the closing credits song for the 1989 episode "The Jolly Boys' Outing". Both songs are performed by Sullivan himself, and not – as is sometimes thought – by Nicholas Lyndhurst.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: The opening credits see images of the three principal actors peel on and off the screen sequentially. These appear over a background of still photographs of everyday life in South London. The sequence was conceived by graphic designer Peter Clayton as a "metaphor for the vagaries of the Trotters' lifestyle", whereby money was earned and quickly lost again. Clayton had also considered using five-pound notes bearing Del's face. The action was shot manually frame by frame, and took around six weeks to complete. Clayton knew that it was important to have the characters established in the titles, and prepared a storyboard depicting his ideas using drawings. He photographed various locations with a photographer, and the titles were shot using a rostrum camera and not edited. Brian Stephens, a professional animator, was hired to create the labels' movement.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: Clayton returned to the show when the closing credits were changed for "Christmas Crackers". He re-cut the entire sequence and added Christmas items. Another change was made necessary by Lennard Pearce's death and Buster Merryfield joining the cast, so the pictures of David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst were updated too. The sequence was shot on motor drive.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: The closing credits for the programme varied series by series. The first series used peeling labels featuring the names of the cast and crew, mirroring the opening sequence, but these had to be updated with every new episode, making the process very time-consuming; from the second series the credits switched to a standard rolling format. The third series featured additional symbols. For the fourth series, these designs were replaced with white lettering on a black background. The fifth series had a black and white background, but the sixth series reverted to the black one. For the seventh series, the credits scrolled against a freeze frame of the final scene.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: The original "Nelson Mandela House" in the titles was Harlech Tower, Park Road East, Acton, London. From 1988 onwards, Whitemead House, Duckmoor Road, Ashton in Bristol was used. The tower block is located behind Ashton Gate, the home ground of both Bristol City Football Club and the Bristol Bears, with some scenes filmed in the stadium's carpark.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: Sixty-four episodes of "Only Fools and Horses", all written by John Sullivan, were broadcast on BBC1 from 8 September 1981 until 25 December 2003. The show was aired in seven series (1981–1983, 1985–1986, 1989 and 1990–1991), and thereafter in sporadic Christmas special editions (1991–1993, 1996, 2001–2003). All earlier episodes had a running time of 30 minutes, but this was extended after Series Six (1989), and all subsequent episodes had a running time ranging from 50 to 95 minutes.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: Several mini-episodes were produced. An eight-minute episode aired on 27 December 1982 as part of a show hosted by Frank Muir, "The Funny Side of Christmas", and attracted 7.2 million viewers. A 5-minute spoof BBC documentary was shown on "Breakfast Time" on 24 December 1985, with Del being investigated by a BBC consumer expert. An educational episode named "Licensed to Drill", in which Del, Rodney and Grandad discuss oil drilling, was recorded in 1984 but only shown in schools. A 5-minute 1990–91 Persian Gulf War special (dated 1 December 1990) has Del, Rodney, and Albert convey a message to British troops serving in the conflict. It has never been broadcast commercially, but a copy exists at the Imperial War Museum, London. A showing Del, Rodney and Albert making an appeal for donations was shown on 14 March 1997, with 10.6 million viewers. A Sport Relief special was aired on 21 March 2014.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: "Only Fools and Horses" had two producers: Ray Butt from 1981 to 1987, and Gareth Gwenlan thereafter. Seven directors were used: Martin Shardlow directed all episodes in series one, Bernard Thompson directed the 1981 Christmas special, Susan Belbin series four, and Mandie Fletcher series five. Butt directed series three and five, as well as the 1985, 1986 and 1987 Christmas specials. Tony Dow became the established director after 1988, directing all subsequent episodes, bar the first part of Miami Twice, which was directed by Gareth Gwenlan. John Sullivan was executive producer on seven of the final eight episodes.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: A BBC documentary titled "The Story of Only Fools and Horses" aired in December 2002. A six-part documentary series also titled "The Story of Only Fools and Horses", began on 29 August 2017 on Gold and finished on 3 October 2017. The series features rare and unseen footage from the archives and specially re-created moments from Del Boy's family and friends. On 27 December 2020, a special called "We Love Only Fools and Horses" was broadcast on Channel 5 in which various fans, actors and crew recalled the story of the series and why the show is still popular.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: A spin-off of "Only Fools and Horses" entitled" The Green Green Grass", also written by John Sullivan and directed by Tony Dow, was first aired in the UK in September 2005. Sullivan had considered writing a sitcom around the popular characters of Boycie and Marlene (John Challis and Sue Holderness) since the mid-1980s, but it was not until the series finally ended that the idea came to fruition. "The Green Green Grass" saw Boycie and Marlene forced to leave Peckham by one-time "Only Fools and Horses" villains, the Driscoll Brothers, and included guest appearances by Denzil (Paul Barber) and Sid (Roy Heather). A second series of "The Green Green Grass" was broadcast in the UK in October 2006, a third in November 2007 and a fourth in January 2009.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: In 2003, it was reported that Sullivan was developing a prequel to the original series, "Once Upon a Time in Peckham", which would feature Del as a youngster in the 1960s, and have a prominent role for his parents. In 2009, it was again reported that the BBC were considering commissioning the show, although nothing was confirmed. On 5 April 2009, Sullivan said that he was planning a prequel to "Only Fools and Horses" which would star Nicholas Lyndhurst as Freddie "The Frog" Robdal, a local criminal and Rodney's biological father; Robdal was the focus of the episode "The Frog's Legacy".


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: On 3 July 2009, the BBC revealed that the title of the spin-off would be "Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Chips", and would be a 90-minute comedy drama. The title was subsequently changed to "Rock & Chips". Filming began in August 2009, and it was shown on BBC One at 9pm on 24 January 2010. In October 2009 it was confirmed that Lyndhurst would star as Robdal. "The Inbetweeners" and "Off The Hook" actor James Buckley played the role of the young Del Boy.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: The show has been released on VHS, DVD and audio CD in several guises. A DVD collection containing every episode was issued, along with various other special edition box-sets, such as a tin based on their Reliant Regal. Videos and DVDs of "Only Fools and Horses" continue to be among the BBC's biggest-selling items, having sold over 1 million VHS copies and 6 million DVD copies in the UK.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: The series made its debut on Blu-ray on 6 December 2021, with a three-disc set entitled "Only Fools and Horses: The 80s Specials." It featured the five feature length Christmas specials broadcast from 1985 to 1989, restored and remastered in high-definition. For the restoration process, the original 16mm film elements were cleaned and rescanned, while the standard-definition videotape elements were "digitally reprocessed" and upscaled to HD. On the set, the episode "A Royal Flush" is featured both in its original and "writer's cut" versions; "The Jolly Boys' Outing" is fully uncut; and various photo galleries, a booklet and artcards are also included.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: Four episodes ("The Long Legs of the Law", "A Losing Streak", "No Greater Love" and "The Yellow Peril") were re-edited for audio purposes and released on audio cassette on 12 October 1998. The cassette was re-released in October 2000.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: A four-minute show named "Royal Variety Performance" was shown on 27 November 1988 (viewed by 18.14 million people) and had Del, Rodney, and Albert appear on the Royal Variety Show. It was staged on 24 November 1986, and the plot saw David Jason, Nicholas Lyndhurst and Buster Merryfield appear on stage in character, thinking that they are delivering boxes of alcohol to an associate of Del's, only later realising where they actually are. They also mistake the Duchess of York for Del's associate.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: An idea of an "Only Fools and Horses" stage show was mooted by Ray Butt, following the success of other sitcom crossovers such as "Dad's Army" and "Are You Being Served?". Sullivan was not keen, owing to his work on "Just Good Friends" as well as "Only Fools and Horses", and inexperience with the theatre, so nothing came of it.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: In July 2018, John Sullivan's son, Jim Sullivan, announced that an "Only Fools and Horses" musical was nearing completion, with a script by Jim Sullivan and Paul Whitehouse. Jim Sullivan said, "Back in 2010 my Dad had been toying with the possibility of a stage show but sadly didn’t get the chance to commit to it. In 2015 we met with the producer, Phil McIntyre, and agreed to develop the idea. Soon after that, Paul Whitehouse came on board and things have been bubbling away ever since. I am very pleased and excited to say that the show will be launching early next year." The musical launched on 9 February 2019 at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, London.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: "Only Fools and Horses" spawned many merchandising spin-offs. Several books have been published, such as ""The Only Fools and Horses Story"" by Steve Clark and ""The Complete A-Z of Only Fools and Horses"" by Richard Webber, both of which detail the history of the series. The scripts have been published in a three-volume compendium, ""The Bible of Peckham"".


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: In October 2015, "He Who Dares...", a fictional autobiography, was published by Ebury Press. The book was written by John Sullivan's son, Jim Sullivan.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: In August 2017, "Only Fools and Horses: The Peckham Archives", was published by Ebury Press. The book was written by Rod Green, with the help of Jim Sullivan.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: In November 2018, "You Know It Makes Sense, Lessons From The Derek Trotter School of Business (And Life)", was published by Ebury Press. The book was written by John Sullivan's son, Jim Sullivan.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: Two board games based on the show were released: a Monopoly-style game, the ""Trotters Trading Game"", in which participants attempt to emulate the Trotters and become millionaires, and another game set in their local pub, entitled the ""Nag's Head Board Game"".


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: "Only Fools and Horses" is one of the UK's most popular sitcoms. It was among the ten most-watched television shows of the year in the UK in 1986, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 2001, 2002 and 2003. The 1996 Christmas trilogy of "Heroes and Villains", "Modern Men" and "Time on Our Hands" saw the show's peak. 21.3 million viewers watched the first two installments while the third (said to be the show's final episode at the time of broadcast) attracted 24.3 million, a record audience for a British sitcom. Repeat episodes also attract millions of viewers, and the BBC has received criticism for repeating the show too often.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: "Only Fools and Horses" won the BAFTA award for best comedy series in 1985, 1988 and 1996, was nominated in 1983, 1986, 1989, 1990 and 1991, and won the audience award in 2004. David Jason received individual BAFTAs for his portrayal of Del Boy in 1990 and 1996. The series won a National Television Award in 1997 for most popular comedy series; Jason won two individual awards, in 1997 and 2002. At the British Comedy Awards, the show was named best BBC sitcom for 1990, and received the People's Choice award in 1997. It also won the Royal Television Society best comedy award in 1997 and two Television and Radio Industries Club Awards for comedy programme of the year, in 1984 and 1997. John Sullivan received the Writers' Guild of Great Britain comedy award in 1997.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: The show regularly features in polls to find the most popular comedy series, moments and characters. It was voted Britain's Best Sitcom in a 2004 BBC poll,


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: and came 45th in the British Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes. It was 3rd on a subsequent viewers' poll on the BFI website. "Empire magazine" ranked "Only Fools and Horses" #42 on their list of the 50 greatest television shows of all time. It was also named the funniest British sitcom of all time through a scientific formula, in a study by Gold. Scenes such as Del Boy's fall through a bar flap in "Yuppy Love" and the Trotters accidentally smashing a priceless chandelier in "A Touch of Glass" are recognisable comedy moments, invariably topping polls of comedy viewers. Del Boy was voted the most popular British TV character of all time in a survey by Open... and in a 2001 Channel 4 poll he ranked fourth on their list of the 100 Greatest TV Characters. A Onepoll survey found that "Only Fools and Horses" was the television series Britons would most like to see return.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: In addition to its mainstream popularity, "Only Fools and Horses" has developed a cult following. The Only Fools and Horses Appreciation Society, established in 1993, has a membership of around 7,000, publishes a quarterly newsletter, "Hookie Street", and organises annual conventions of fans, usually attended by cast members. The Society has also organised an "Only Fools and Horses" museum, containing props from the series, including Del's camel coat and the Trotters' Ford Capri. It was named one of the top 20 cult television programmes of all time by TV critic Jeff Evans. Evans spoke of:


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: "Only Fools and Horses" – and consequently John Sullivan – is credited with the popularisation in Britain of several words and phrases used by Del Boy, particularly


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: ""Plonker"", meaning a fool or an idiot, and two expressions of delight or approval: ""Cushty"" (from the Roma word for "good") and ""Lovely jubbly"". The latter was borrowed from an advertising slogan for a popular 1960s orange juice drink, called "Jubbly", which was packaged in a pyramid shaped, waxed paper carton. Sullivan remembered it and thought it was an expression Del Boy would use; in 2003, the phrase was incorporated into the new Oxford English Dictionary.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: Owing to its exposure on "Only Fools and Horses", the Reliant Regal van is often linked with the show in the British media. The one used by the Trotters has attained cult status and is currently on display at the Cars of the Stars exhibition at the National Motor Museum, alongside many other vehicles from British and American television and movies, such as the Batmobile and the DeLorean from "Back to the Future". Boxer Ricky Hatton, a fan of the show, purchased one of the original vans in 2004. Another of the vans used in the series was sold at auction in the UK for £44,000 in February 2007.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: During the media frenzy surrounding "The Independent"s revelations that the new bottled water Dasani, marketed by Coca-Cola, was in fact just purified tap water from Sidcup, mocking parallels were made with the "Only Fools and Horses" episode, "Mother Nature's Son", in which Del sells tap water as "Peckham Spring".


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: Rose Tyler's father Pete Tyler is referred to as "a bit of a Del Boy" in the 2005 "Doctor Who" episode "Father's Day".


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: In the closing ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, the Trotters' yellow Reliant van appeared on stage, along with Del Boy and Rodney body doubles dressed as Batman and Robin, a reference to the "Only Fools and Horses" episode "Heroes and Villains".


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: "Only Fools and Horses" was sold to countries throughout the world. Australia, Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Malta, New Zealand, Pakistan, Portugal, South Africa, Spain and Yugoslavia are among those who purchased it. In all former Yugoslav countries in which Serbian or Croatian is spoken the title was "Mućke" (or Мућке in Cyrillic script), which can roughly be translated as "shady deals". This translation was also used in Macedonia, where the show was titled "Spletki" (Сплетки in Cyrillic). In Slovenia, however, the show was titled "Samo bedaki in konji", which is a literal Slovenian translation of the original English title. The show has enjoyed particular popularity in Serbia where it has achieved cult status. In Hungary, the first three series were on air on Danube TV channel with title: Csak kötözött bolondoknak.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: A number of overseas re-makes have also been produced. A Dutch version aired for one series in 1995, entitled "Wat schuift 't?" ("What's it good for?"). The Trotters were renamed the Aarsmans and it starred Johnny Kraaykamp jnr. as Stef (Del), Sacco Van der Made as Grandad and Kasper van Kooten as Robbie (Rodney), and was shown on RTL 4. A Portuguese re-make, "O Fura-Vidas", a local expression for someone who lives outside the law, ran for three series from 1999 to 2001. It was a literal translation of the British version, with all episodes based on the originals. It centred on the Fintas family, who live in Sapadores, a neighbourhood in Lisbon, and starred Miguel Guilherme as Quim (Del), Canto e Castro as Grandad, and Ivo Canelas as Joca (Rodney). In this Portuguese version the Reliant's equivalent was a 1988 Suzuki Super Carry. A Slovenian re-make, called "Brat bratu" (Brother to Brother), was broadcast from 2008 to 2009. All episodes were based on the original British storylines, and it was made in co-operation with John Sullivan. It featured brothers Brane (Brane Šturbej) and Bine (Jure Drevenšek), who moved from Maribor to Ljubljana. The series also stars Peter Ternovšek as Grandad. It was directed by Branko Đurić. The series was cancelled after thirteen episodes due to poor ratings.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: There have been several plans to produce an American version. One was to be a star vehicle for former "M*A*S*H" actor Harry Morgan, with Grandad rather than Del becoming the lead character. The other, entitled "This Time Next Year...", would have seen the Trotters renamed the Flannagans. A draft script was written for the latter, but neither show materialised. In 2010 Steve Carell, star of the US version of "The Office", expressed an interest in making an American version of the series, with him to star as Del Boy. In January 2012 US network ABC commissioned a pilot of an "Only Fools and Horses" remake titled "King of Van Nuys", written by "Scrubs" writers Steven Cragg and Brian Bradley. It was developed, rejected and then redeveloped, only to be rejected again later in the year. The pilot starred John Leguizamo as Del, Dustin Ybarra as his brother Rodney and Christopher Lloyd as Grandad.


title: Only Fools and Horses

text: A parody called "Only Jerks and Horses" was written by David Walliams and Matt Lucas and directed by Edgar Wright in 1997.


title: Statutory rape

text: In common law jurisdictions, statutory rape is nonforcible sexual activity in which one of the individuals is below the age of consent (the age required to legally consent to the behavior). Although it usually refers to adults engaging in sexual contact with minors under the age of consent, it is a generic term, and very few jurisdictions use the actual term "statutory rape" in the language of statutes.


title: Statutory rape

text: Different jurisdictions use many different statutory terms for the crime, such as "sexual assault" (SA), "rape of a child" (ROAC), "corruption of a minor" (COAM), "unlawful sex with a minor" (USWAM), "carnal knowledge of a minor" (CKOAM), "sexual battery" or simply "carnal knowledge". The terms "child sexual abuse" or "child molestation" may also be used, but "statutory rape" generally refers to sex between an adult and a minor past the age of puberty, and may therefore be distinguished from child sexual abuse. Sexual relations with a prepubescent child is typically treated as a more serious crime.


title: Statutory rape

text: In statutory rape, overt force or threat is usually not present. Statutory rape laws presume coercion, because a minor or mentally disabled adult is legally incapable of giving consent to the act.


title: Statutory rape

text: In many jurisdictions, the age of consent is interpreted to mean mental or functional age. As a result, victims can be of any chronological age if their mental age makes them unable to consent to a sexual act.


title: Statutory rape

text: Consensual teenage sex is common in the United States. A 1995 study revealed that 50% of U.S. teenagers have had sexual intercourse by the age of sixteen. It is estimated that there are more than 7 million incidents of statutory rape every year. However, it is clear that most incidents are not prosecuted and do not lead to arrests and convictions. Laws vary in their definitions of statutory rape.


title: Statutory rape

text: Statutory rape laws are based on the premise that an individual is legally incapable of consenting to sexual intercourse until that person reaches a certain age. The law mandates that even if he or she willingly engages in sexual intercourse, the sex is not consensual.


title: Statutory rape

text: Critics argue that an age limit cannot be used to determine the ability to consent to sex, since a young teenager might possess enough social sense to make informed and mature decisions about sex, while some adults might never develop the ability to make mature choices about sex, as even many mentally healthy individuals remain naive and easily manipulated throughout their lives.


title: Statutory rape

text: Another rationale comes from the fact that minors are generally economically, socially, and legally unequal to adults. By making it illegal for an adult to have sex with a minor, statutory rape laws aim to give the minor some protection against adults in a position of power over the youth.


title: Statutory rape

text: Another argument presented in defense of statutory rape laws relates to the difficulty in prosecuting rape (against a victim of any age) in the courtroom. Because forced sexual intercourse with a minor is considered a particularly heinous form of rape, these laws relieve the prosecution of the burden to prove lack of consent. This makes conviction more frequent in cases involving minors.


title: Statutory rape

text: The original purpose of statutory rape laws was to protect young, unwed females from males who might impregnate them and not take responsibility by providing support for the child. In the past, the solution to such problems was often a shotgun wedding, a forced marriage called for by the parents of the girl in question. This rationale aims to preserve the marriageability of the girl and to prevent unwanted teenage pregnancy.


title: Statutory rape

text: Historically, a man could defend himself against statutory rape charges by proving that his victim was already sexually experienced prior to their encounter (and thus not subject to being corrupted by the defendant). A requirement that the victim be "of previously chaste character" remained in effect in some U.S. states until as late as the 1990s.


title: Statutory rape

text: Until the late 1970s, sex involving an adult female and an underage male was often ignored by the law, due to the belief that it is often sexual initiation by the younger male. This view still exists in modern times, as it is glamorized by the media and that there is a gender bias in courts on teacher–student sexual relationships. In 2005, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention estimated that five percent of statutory rape victims were male, and that 94% of the perpetrators in these cases were female; 73% of the female perpetrators were aged 21 or over, while 76% of the male victims were aged 15 or younger.


title: Statutory rape

text: A 2006 review of scientific research found that the majority of men who had sex with women as underaged boys hold a positive reaction about the relationship, with a third of them being neutral and less than 5% being negative toward it. However, these men expressed slightly higher levels of psychological distress than men who had not had these experiences. The authors suggested that societal views may disincline men from recognizing negative or abusive elements of the relationships. In contrast, women who were involved with adult men when they were underage mostly had negative reactions once they left the relationship, seeing them as sexual deviants who could not find willing same-age partners and who instead exploited young girls.


title: Statutory rape

text: U.S. courts have held that male victims of statutory rape are liable for child support for any children resulting from the crime, uniformly taking the view that the criminal act of the mother is irrelevant to a child support obligation. In many cases, the boys were not characterized as victims, but as willing participants. Courts often rely on the consent of the victim to the sexual intercourse when imposing child support orders, even though within the context of statutory rape prosecutions minors are deemed legally incapable of giving consent. In "County of San Luis Obispo v. Nathaniel J." the 15-year-old victim discussed a future relationship with the 34-year-old perpetrator and stated that the sex was "a mutually agreeable act". The court found that the boy was "not an innocent victim", and had responsibilities to the child.


title: Statutory rape

text: A review of 97 statutory rape cases in New Jersey, involving teachers and underage students, found that male offenders receive longer average prison terms than female offenders, with an average sentence of 2.4 years for men and 1.6 years for women, although the data did not reveal the extent to which gender may have affected sentencing.


title: Statutory rape

text: In some jurisdictions, relationships between adults and minors are penalized more when both are the same sex. For example, in the US state of Kansas, if someone 18 or older has sex with a minor no more than four years younger, a Romeo and Juliet law limits the penalty substantially. As written, however, this law did not apply to same-sex couples, leaving them subject to higher penalties than opposite-sex couples for the same offense. This resulted in higher statutory rape convictions, larger fines, and sex offender registration for teens involved in same-sex statutory rape. The Kansas law was successfully challenged as being in conflict with the U.S. Supreme Court rulings "Lawrence v. Texas" and "Romer v. Evans". The "Lawrence" precedent did not directly address equal protection, but its application in the case of "State v. Limon" (2005) invalidated age of consent laws that discriminate based on sexual orientation in Kansas.


title: Statutory rape

text: § 222. Den, som har samleje med et barn under 15 år, straffes med fængsel indtil 8 år, medmindre forholdet er omfattet af § 216, stk. 2. Ved fastsættelse af straffen skal det indgå som en skærpende omstændighed, at gerningsmanden har skaffet sig samlejet ved udnyttelse af sin fysiske eller psykiske overlegenhed.


title: Statutory rape

text: Stk. 2. Har gerningsmanden skaffet sig samlejet ved tvang eller fremsættelse af trusler, kan straffen stige til fængsel indtil 12 år.


title: Statutory rape

text: § 222. One who has sexual intercourse with a child under the age of 15, shall be punished by imprisonment for up to 8 years, unless the situation is covered by § 216 paragraph 2. In determining the penalty, it shall be an aggravating circumstance if the perpetrator has gained intercourse by exploiting their physical or mental superiority.


title: Statutory rape

text: Paragraph. 2. If the offender has gained intercourse by coercion or threats, the penalty may be increased to imprisonment for up to 12 years.


title: Statutory rape

text: The content of § 216 paragraph 2 specifies the penalty can be increased to 12 years, if the child is under the age of 12.


title: Statutory rape

text: For England and Wales, the legal framework of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 differentiates between sexual contact with children under 13, and sexual contact with those at least 13 but under 16.


title: Statutory rape

text: Sexual penetration of a child under 13 is termed "Rape of a child under 13", an offence created by section 5 of the Act, which reads:


title: Statutory rape

text: The Explanatory Notes read: "Whether or not the child consented to this act is irrelevant". The term 'rape' therefore is used only with regard to children under 13; consensual sexual penetration of a child above 13 but under 16 is defined as 'Sexual activity with a child', and punished less severely (section 9, which requires the perpetrator to be 18 or over). A minor can also be guilty for sexual contact with another minor (section 13), but the Explanatory Notes state that decisions whether to prosecute in cases where both parties are minors are to be taken on a case-by-case basis. The Crown Prosecution guidelines state "[I]t is not in the public interest to prosecute children who are of the same or similar age and understanding that engage in sexual activity, where the activity is truly consensual for both parties and there are no aggravating features, such as coercion or corruption."


title: Statutory rape

text: Northern Ireland follows a similar legal framework, under the Sexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 2008. This Act overhauled the sexual offenses laws in Northern Ireland, and fixed the age of consent at 16 in line with the rest of the UK; prior to this Act it was 17.


title: Statutory rape

text: In Scotland, the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009 also fixes an age of consent of 16, and is also two tiered, treating children under 13 differently than children 13–16. Section 18, "Rape of a young child", applies to children under 13. Before the enactment of this Act, Scotland had very few statutory sexual offences, with most of its sexual legislation being defined at common law, which was increasingly seen as a problem in particular for the issue of consent. The creation of a two tier age limit was deemed very important during the drafting of the Act.


title: Statutory rape

text: Often, teenage couples engage in sexual conduct as part of an intimate relationship. This may occur before either participant has reached the age of consent, or after one has but the other has not. In the latter case, in most jurisdictions, the person who has reached the age of consent is guilty of statutory rape. In some jurisdictions (such as California and Michigan), if two minors have sex with each other, they are both guilty of engaging in unlawful sex with the other person. The act itself is "prima facie" evidence of guilt when one participant is incapable of legally consenting.


title: Statutory rape

text: Some jurisdictions have passed so-called "Romeo and Juliet laws", which serve to reduce or eliminate the penalty of the crime in cases where the couple's age difference is minor and the sexual contact would not have been rape if both partners were legally able to give consent. Such laws vary, but can include:


title: Statutory rape

text: Such laws generally apply to a couple whose ages differ by less than a specified number of years. They are, however, generally unavailable in any case where the older participant has an authoritative position over the younger regardless of relative age, such as a teacher/student, coach/player or guardian/ward relationship, or if any physical force was used or serious physical injury resulted. This is normally accomplished by making acts involving these circumstances separate crimes to which the "Romeo and Juliet" defense does not apply.


title: Statutory rape

text: An example is Texas Penal Code, Section 22.011(e). It provides an affirmative defense to a charge of sexual assault if all of the following apply;


title: Statutory rape

text: A similar affirmative defense exists in the Texas Penal Code for the related crime of "continuous sexual abuse of a young child or children". Any defense under either law, however, does not apply to the separate crime of "improper educator/student relationship" (sexual relations between a licensed teacher or school employee and a student of the same school), or for "aggravated sexual assault" (the forcible rape statute of Texas law).


title: Statutory rape

text: Some countries other than the United States also have Romeo and Juliet laws. Ireland's 2006 law has been contested because it treats girls differently from boys. In Canada, the age of consent is normally 16, but there are two close-in-age exemptions: sex with minors aged 14–15 is permitted if the partner is less than five years older, and sex with minors aged 12–13 is permitted if the partner is less than two years older. Other countries state that the sexual conduct with the minor is not to be punished if the partners are of a similar age and development: for instance, the age of consent in Finland is 16, but the law states that the act will not be punished if "there is no great difference in the ages or the mental and physical maturity of the persons involved". Another approach takes the form of a stipulation that sexual intercourse between a minor and an adult is legal under the condition that the latter does not exceed a certain age. In Slovenia, the age of consent is 15, but the activity is only deemed criminal if there is "a marked discrepancy between the maturity of the perpetrator and that of the victim".


title: Statutory rape

text: While there is broad support for the concept of statutory rape as criminal in the United States, there is substantial debate on how vigorously such cases should be pursued and under what circumstances.


title: Statutory rape

text: In May 2006, the Irish Supreme Court found the existing statutory rape laws to have been unconstitutional, since they prevented the defendant from entering a defence (e.g., that he had reasonably believed that the other party was over the age of consent). This has led to the release of persons held under the statutory rape law and has led to public demands that the law be changed by emergency legislation being enacted. On 2 June 2006 the Irish Supreme Court upheld an appeal by the state against the release of one such person, "Mr A". Mr A was rearrested shortly afterwards to continue serving his sentence.


title: Statutory rape

text: In the aftermath of the December 2007 disclosure by then-16-year-old US actress Jamie Lynn Spears, the sister of pop star Britney Spears, that the father of her baby is 18-year-old Casey Aldridge, there was talk of the prosecution of Aldridge for statutory rape, which could be done under current Louisiana state law. Prosecution in the case was never pursued.


title: John Dean

text: John Wesley Dean III (born October 14, 1938) is an American former attorney who served as White House Counsel for U.S. President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. Dean is known for his role in the cover-up of the Watergate scandal and his subsequent testimony to Congress as a witness. His guilty plea to a single felony in exchange for becoming a key witness for the prosecution ultimately resulted in a reduced sentence, which he served at Fort Holabird outside Baltimore, Maryland. After his plea, he was disbarred.


title: John Dean

text: Shortly after the Watergate hearings, Dean wrote about his experiences in a series of books and toured the United States to lecture. He later became a commentator on contemporary politics, a book author, and a columnist for FindLaw's "Writ".


title: John Dean

text: Dean had originally been a proponent of Goldwater conservatism, but he later became a critic of the Republican Party. Dean has been particularly critical of the party's support of Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump, and of neoconservatism, strong executive power, mass surveillance, and the Iraq War.


title: John Dean

text: Dean was born in Akron, Ohio, and lived in Marion, the hometown of the 29th President of the United States, Warren Harding, whose biographer he later became. His family moved to Flossmoor, Illinois, where he attended grade school. For high school, he attended Staunton Military Academy with Barry Goldwater Jr., the son of Sen. Barry Goldwater, and became a close friend of the family. He attended Colgate University and then transferred to the College of Wooster in Ohio, where he obtained his B.A. in 1961. He received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1965.


title: John Dean

text: Dean married Karla Ann Hennings on February 4, 1962; they had one child, John Wesley Dean IV, before divorcing in 1970. Dean married Maureen (Mo) Kane on October 13, 1972.


title: John Dean

text: After graduation, Dean joined Welch & Morgan, a law firm in Washington, D.C., where he was soon accused of conflict of interest violations and fired: he was alleged to have started negotiating his own private deal for a TV station broadcast license, after his firm had assigned him to complete the same task for a client.


title: John Dean

text: Dean was employed from 1966 to 1967 as chief minority counsel to the Republicans on the United States House Committee on the Judiciary. Dean then served as associate director of the National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws for approximately two years.


title: John Dean

text: Dean volunteered to write position papers on crime for Richard Nixon's presidential campaign in 1968. The following year, he became an associate deputy in the office of the Attorney General of the United States, serving under Attorney General John N. Mitchell, with whom he was on friendly terms. In July 1970, he accepted an appointment to serve as counsel to the president, after the previous holder of this post, John Ehrlichman, became the president's chief domestic adviser.


title: John Dean

text: On January 27, 1972, Dean, the White House Counsel, met with Jeb Magruder (Deputy Director of the Committee to Re-Elect the President, or CRP and CREEP) and Mitchell (Attorney General of the United States, and soon-to-be Director of CRP), in Mitchell's office, for a presentation by G. Gordon Liddy (counsel for CRP and a former FBI agent). Liddy presented a preliminary plan for intelligence-gathering operations during the campaign. Reaction to Liddy's plan was highly unfavorable. Liddy was ordered to scale down his ideas, and he presented a revised plan to the same group on February 4, which was also left unapproved.


title: John Dean

text: In late March in Florida, Mitchell approved a scaled-down plan. This revised plan eventually led to attempts to eavesdrop on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., and to the Watergate scandal. The burglars' first break-in attempt in late May was successful, but several problems had arisen with poor-quality information from their bugs, and they wanted to photograph more documents. Specifically, the burglars were interested in information they thought was held by DNC head Lawrence F. O'Brien. On their second break-in, on the night of June 16, hotel security discovered the burglars. After the burglars' arrest, Dean took custody of evidence and money from the White House safe of E. Howard Hunt, who had been in charge of the burglaries, and destroyed some of the evidence before investigators could find it.


title: John Dean

text: On February 28, 1973, Acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee during his nomination to replace J. Edgar Hoover as director of the FBI. Armed with newspaper articles indicating the White House had possession of FBI Watergate files, committee chair Sam Ervin asked Gray what he knew about the White House obtaining the files. Gray said he had given FBI reports to Dean, and had discussed the FBI investigation with Dean on many occasions. It also came out that Gray had destroyed important evidence Dean entrusted to him. Gray's nomination failed and Dean was directly linked to the Watergate cover-up.


title: John Dean

text: White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman later claimed that Nixon appointed Dean to take the lead role in coordinating the Watergate cover-up from an early stage and that this cover-up was working very well for many months. Certain aspects of the scandal came to light before Election Day, but Nixon was reelected by a landslide.


title: John Dean

text: On March 22, 1973, Nixon requested that Dean put together a report with everything he knew about the Watergate matter, inviting him to take a retreat to Camp David to do so. Dean went to Camp David and did some work on a report, but since he was one of the cover-up's chief participants, the task put him in the difficult position of relating his own involvement as well as that of others; he correctly concluded that higher-ups were fitting him for the role of scapegoat. Dean did not complete the report.


title: John Dean

text: On March 23, the five Watergate burglars, along with G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, were sentenced with stiff fines and prison time of up to 40 years.


title: John Dean

text: On April 6, Dean hired an attorney and began cooperating with Senate Watergate investigators, while continuing to work as Nixon's Chief White House Counsel and participating in cover-up efforts, not disclosing this obvious conflict to Nixon until some time later. Dean was also receiving advice from the attorney he hired, Charles Shaffer, on matters involving the vulnerabilities of other White House staff.


title: John Dean

text: Dean continued to provide information to the prosecutors, who were able to make enormous progress on the cover-up, which until then they had virtually ignored, concentrating on the actual burglary and events preceding it. Dean also appeared before the Watergate grand jury, where he took the Fifth Amendment numerous times to avoid incriminating himself, and in order to save his testimony for the Senate Watergate hearings.


title: John Dean

text: Coupled with his sense of distance from Nixon's inner circle, the "Berlin Wall" of advisors Haldeman and Ehrlichman, Dean sensed he was going to become the Watergate scapegoat and returned to Washington without completing his report. Nixon fired Dean on April 30, the same day he announced the resignations of Haldeman and Ehrlichman.


title: John Dean

text: When Nixon learned that Dean had begun cooperating with federal prosecutors, he pressed Attorney General Richard Kleindienst not to give Dean immunity from prosecution by telling Kleindienst that Dean was lying to the Justice Department about his conversations with the president. On April 17, 1973, Nixon told Assistant Attorney General Henry Petersen (who was overseeing the Watergate investigation) that he did not want any member of the White House granted immunity from prosecution. Petersen informed Nixon that this could cause problems for the prosecution of the case, but Nixon publicly announced his position that evening. It was alleged that Nixon's motivation for preventing Dean from getting immunity was to prevent him from testifying against key Nixon aides and Nixon himself.


title: John Dean

text: On June 25, 1973, Dean began his testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee. The committee had voted to grant him use immunity (doing so in a divided vote in a private session that was then changed to a unanimous vote and announced that way to the public). In his testimony, he implicated administration officials, including Mitchell, Nixon, and himself. His testimony attracted very high television ratings since he was breaking new ground in the investigation, and media attention grew apace, with more detailed newspaper coverage. Dean was the first administration official to accuse Nixon of direct involvement with Watergate and the resulting cover-up in press interviews. Such testimony against Nixon, while damaging to the president's credibility, had little legal impact, as it was merely his word against Nixon's. Nixon vigorously denied all accusations that he had authorized a cover-up, and Dean had no corroboration beyond various notes he had taken in his meetings with the president. It was not until it was revealed that Nixon had made secret White House tape recordings (disclosed in testimony by Alexander Butterfield on July 16) and the tapes were subpoenaed and analyzed that many of Dean's accusations were largely substantiated. Dean had had suspicions that Nixon was taping conversations, and he tipped prosecutors to question witnesses along this line, leading to Butterfield's revelations. Dean’s words on tape can be heard in the British documentary TV series "Watergate".


title: John Dean

text: When it was revealed that Nixon had secretly recorded all meetings in the Oval Office, famous psychologist and memory researcher Ulric Neisser analyzed Dean's recollections of the meetings, as expressed through his testimony, in comparison to the meetings' actual recordings. A sharp critic of studying memory in a laboratory setting, Neisser saw "a valuable data trove" in Dean's recall.


title: John Dean

text: Neisser found that, despite Dean's confidence, the tapes proved that his memory was anything but a tape recorder. Dean failed to recall any conversations verbatim, and often failed to recall the gist of conversations correctly. Neisser did not explain the difference as one of deception; rather, he thought that the evidence supported the theory that memory is not akin to a tape recorder and instead should be thought of as reconstructions of information that are greatly affected by rehearsal, or attempts at replay.


title: John Dean

text: Dean pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice before Watergate trial judge John Sirica on October 19, 1973. He admitted supervising payments of "hush money" to the Watergate burglars, notably E. Howard Hunt, and revealed the existence of Nixon's enemies list. Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox was interested in meeting with Dean and planned to do so a few days later, but Cox was fired by Nixon the next day; it was not until a month later that Cox was replaced by Leon Jaworski. On August 2, 1974, Sirica handed down a sentence to Dean of one to four years in a minimum-security prison. But when Dean surrendered as scheduled on September 3, he was diverted to the custody of U.S. Marshals and kept instead at Fort Holabird (near Baltimore, Maryland) in a special "safe house" primarily used for witnesses against the Mafia. He spent his days at the offices of Jaworski, the Watergate Special Prosecutor, and testifying in the trial of Watergate conspirators Mitchell, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Robert Mardian, and Kenneth Parkinson, which concluded in December. All except Parkinson were convicted, largely based upon Dean's evidence. Dean's lawyer moved to have his sentence reduced and on January 8, Sirica granted the motion, adjusting Dean's sentence to time served, which was four months. With his plea to felony offenses, Dean was disbarred as a lawyer in Virginia and the District of Columbia.


title: John Dean

text: Shortly after Watergate, Dean became an investment banker, author and lecturer based in Beverly Hills, California. He chronicled his White House experiences, with a focus on Watergate, in the memoirs "Blind Ambition" (1976) and "Lost Honor" (1982). "Blind Ambition" was ghostwritten by future Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Taylor Branch and later made into a 1979 TV miniseries.


title: John Dean

text: In 1992, Dean hired attorney Neil Papiano and brought the first in a series of defamation suits against Liddy for claims in Liddy's book "Will", and St. Martin's Press for its publication of the book "Silent Coup" by Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin. "Silent Coup" alleged that Dean masterminded the Watergate burglaries and the Watergate coverup and that the true aim of the burglaries was to seize information implicating Dean and the former Maureen "Mo" Biner (his then-fiancée) in a prostitution ring. After hearing of Colodny's work, Liddy issued a revised paperback version of "Will" supporting Colodny's theory. This theory was subsequently the subject of the 1992 A&E Network "Investigative Reports" series program "The Key to Watergate".


title: John Dean

text: In the preface to his 2006 book "Conservatives Without Conscience", Dean strongly denied Colodny's theory, pointing out that Colodny's chief source (Phillip Mackin Bailley) had been in and out of mental institutions. Dean settled the defamation suit against Colodny and his publisher, St. Martin's Press, on terms that Dean wrote in the book's preface he could not divulge under the conditions of the settlement, other than that "the Deans were satisfied." The case of Dean vs. Liddy was dismissed without prejudice. Also in 2006, Dean appeared as an interviewee in the documentary "The U.S. vs. John Lennon", about the Nixon administration's efforts to keep John Lennon out of the United States.


title: John Dean

text: Dean retired from investment banking in 2000 while continuing to work as an author and lecturer, becoming a columnist for FindLaw's "Writ" online magazine. He resides in Beverly Hills, California.


title: John Dean

text: In 2001, Dean published "", an exposé of the White House's selection process for a new Supreme Court justice in 1971, which led to the appointment of William Rehnquist. Three years later, Dean wrote a book heavily critical of the administration of George W. Bush, "Worse than Watergate", in which he called for the impeachment of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for allegedly lying to Congress.


title: John Dean

text: His next book, released in 2006, was "Conservatives without Conscience", a play on Barry Goldwater's book "The Conscience of a Conservative". In it, he asserts that post-Goldwater conservatism has been co-opted by people with authoritarian personalities and policies, citing data from Bob Altemeyer. According to Dean, modern conservatism, specifically on the Christian Right, embraces obedience, inequality, intolerance, and strong intrusive government, in stark contrast to Goldwater's philosophies and policies. Using Altemeyer's scholarly work, he contends that there is a tendency toward ethically questionable political practices when authoritarians are in power and that the current political situation is dangerously unsound because of it. Dean cites the behavior of key members of the Republican leadership, including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Tom DeLay, Newt Gingrich and Bill Frist, as clear evidence of a relationship between modern right-wing conservatism and this authoritarian approach to governance. He places particular emphasis on the abdication of checks and balances by the Republican Congress and on the dishonesty of the conservative intellectual class in support of the Republican Party, as a result of the obedience and arrogance innate to the authoritarian mentality.


title: John Dean

text: After it became known that Bush authorized NSA wiretaps without warrants, Dean asserted that Bush is "the first President to admit to an impeachable offense". On March 31, 2006, Dean testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee during hearings on censuring Bush over the issue. Senator Russell Feingold, who sponsored the censure resolution, introduced Dean as a "patriot" who put "rule of law above the interests of the president." In his testimony, Dean asserted that Nixon covered up Watergate because he believed it was in the interest of national security. This sparked a sharp debate with Republican South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, who repeatedly asserted that Nixon authorized the break-in at Democratic headquarters. Dean finally replied, "You're showing you don't know that subject very well." Spectators laughed, and soon the senator was "sputtering mad".


title: John Dean

text: Dean's 2007 book "Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Branches" is, as he wrote in its introduction, the third volume of an unplanned trilogy. In this latest book, Dean, who has repeatedly called himself a "Goldwater conservative", built on "Worse Than Watergate" and "Conservatives Without Conscience" to argue that the Republican Party has gravely damaged all three branches of the federal government in the service of ideological rigidity and with no attention to the public interest or the general good. Dean concludes that conservatism must regenerate itself to remain true to its core ideals of limited government and the rule of law.


title: John Dean

text: In 2008, Dean co-edited "Pure Goldwater," a collection of writings by the 1964 Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater, in part as an act of fealty to the man who defined his political ideals. His co-editor was Goldwater's son Barry Goldwater, Jr.


title: John Dean

text: Historian Stanley Kutler was accused of editing the Nixon tapes to make Dean appear in a more favorable light.


title: John Dean

text: On September 17, 2009, Dean appeared on "Countdown" with new allegations about Watergate. He said he had found information via the Nixon tapes that showed what the burglars were after: information on a kickback scheme involving the Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida. Dean also asserts that Nixon did not directly order the break-in, but that Ehrlichman ordered it on Nixon's behalf.


title: John Dean

text: In speaking engagements in 2014, Dean called Watergate a "lawyers' scandal" that, for all the bad, ushered in needed legal ethics reforms.


title: John Dean

text: Dean later emerged as a strong critic of Donald Trump, saying in 2017 that he was even worse than Nixon. He said, "It's a nightmare. They don't know what their jeopardy is. They don't know what they're looking at. They don't know if they're a part of a conspiracy that might unfold. They don't know whether to hire lawyers or not, how they're going to pay for them if they do. It's an unpleasant place."


title: John Dean

text: In September 2018, Dean warned against Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the United States Supreme Court, a main concern being that the appointment would result in "the most presidential-powers-friendly court" in modern times.


title: John Dean

text: On November 7, 2018, the day after the midterm elections, Trump forced Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign. Dean commented on the removal in colorful terms, saying it "seems to be planned like a murder" and that Special Counsel Robert Mueller likely had contingency plans, possibly including sealed indictments.


title: John Dean

text: In early June 2019, Dean testified, along with various U.S. attorneys and legal experts, before the House Judiciary Committee on the implications of, and potential actions as a result of, the Mueller report.


title: John Dean

text: In 2022, John Dean commented on the Committee investigating stating that the committee had an overwhelming case against Donald Trump.


title: John Dean

text: Dean frequently served as a guest on the former MSNBC and Current TV news program, "Countdown with Keith Olbermann", and "The Randi Rhodes Show" on Premiere Radio Networks.


title: John Dean

text: In the 1979 TV mini-series "Blind Ambition", Dean was played by Martin Sheen. In the 1995 film "Nixon", directed by Oliver Stone, Dean was played by David Hyde Pierce. In the 1999 film "Dick", Dean was played by Jim Breuer. In the 2022 TV mini-series "Gaslit", Dean was played by Dan Stevens.


title: Pearl

text: A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carbonate (mainly aragonite or a mixture of aragonite and calcite) in minute crystalline form, which has deposited in concentric layers. The ideal pearl is perfectly round and smooth, but many other shapes, known as baroque pearls, can occur. The finest quality of natural pearls have been highly valued as gemstones and objects of beauty for many centuries. Because of this, "pearl" has become a metaphor for something rare, fine, admirable and valuable.


title: Pearl

text: The most valuable pearls occur spontaneously in the wild, but are extremely rare. These wild pearls are referred to as "natural" pearls. "Cultured" or "farmed" pearls from pearl oysters and freshwater mussels make up the majority of those currently sold. Imitation pearls are also widely sold in inexpensive jewelry. Pearls have been harvested and cultivated primarily for use in jewelry, but in the past were also used to adorn clothing. They have also been crushed and used in cosmetics, medicines and paint formulations.


title: Pearl

text: Whether wild or cultured, gem-quality pearls are almost always nacreous and iridescent, like the interior of the shell that produces them. However, almost all species of shelled mollusks are capable of producing pearls (technically "calcareous concretions") of lesser shine or less spherical shape. Although these may also be legitimately referred to as "pearls" by gemological labs and also under U.S. Federal Trade Commission rules, and are formed in the same way, most of them have no value except as curiosities.


title: Pearl

text: The English word "pearl" comes from the French "perle", originally from the Latin "perna" meaning leg, after the ham- or mutton leg-shaped bivalve.


title: Pearl

text: The scientific name for the family of pearl-bearing oysters, Margaritiferidae comes from the Old Persian word for pearl "*margārīta-" which is the source of the English name Margaret.


title: Pearl

text: All shelled mollusks can, by natural processes, produce some kind of "pearl" when an irritating microscopic object becomes trapped within its mantle folds, but the great majority of these "pearls" are not valued as gemstones. Nacreous pearls, the best-known and most commercially significant, are primarily produced by two groups of molluskan bivalves or clams. A nacreous pearl is made from layers of nacre, by the same living process as is used in the secretion of the mother of pearl which lines the shell.


title: Pearl

text: Natural (or wild) pearls, formed without human intervention, are very rare. Many hundreds of pearl oysters or mussels must be gathered and opened, and thus killed, to find even one wild pearl; for many centuries, this was the only way pearls were obtained, and why pearls fetched such extraordinary prices in the past. Cultured pearls are formed in pearl farms, using human intervention as well as natural processes.


title: Pearl

text: One family of nacreous pearl bivalves – the pearl oyster – lives in the sea, while the other – a very different group of bivalves – lives in freshwater; these are the river mussels such as the freshwater pearl mussel. Saltwater pearls can grow in several species of marine pearl oysters in the family Pteriidae. Freshwater pearls grow within certain (but by no means all) species of freshwater mussels in the order Unionida, the families Unionidae and Margaritiferidae.


title: Pearl

text: The unique luster of pearls depends upon the reflection, refraction, and diffraction of light from the translucent layers. The thinner and more numerous the layers in the pearl, the finer the luster. The iridescence that pearls display is caused by the overlapping of successive layers, which breaks up light falling on the surface. In addition, pearls (especially cultured freshwater pearls) can be dyed yellow, green, blue, brown, pink, purple, or black. The most valuable pearls have a metallic, highly reflective luster.


title: Pearl

text: Because pearls are made primarily of calcium carbonate, they can be dissolved in vinegar. Calcium carbonate is susceptible to even a weak acid solution because the crystals react with the acetic acid in the vinegar to form calcium acetate and carbon dioxide.


title: Pearl

text: Freshwater and saltwater pearls may sometimes look quite similar, but they come from different sources.


title: Pearl

text: Freshwater pearls form in various species of freshwater mussels, family Unionidae, which live in lakes, rivers, ponds and other bodies of fresh water. These freshwater pearl mussels occur not only in hotter climates, but also in colder more temperate areas such as Scotland (where they are protected under law). Most freshwater cultured pearls sold today come from China.


title: Pearl

text: Saltwater pearls grow within pearl oysters, family Pteriidae, which live in oceans. Saltwater pearl oysters are usually cultivated in protected lagoons or volcanic atolls.


title: Pearl

text: The mollusk's mantle (protective membrane) deposits layers of calcium carbonate (CaCO) in the form of the mineral aragonite or a mixture of aragonite and calcite (polymorphs with the same chemical formula, but different crystal structures) held together by an organic horn-like compound called conchiolin. The combination of aragonite and conchiolin is called nacre, which makes up mother-of-pearl. The commonly held belief that a grain of sand acts as the irritant is in fact rarely the case. Typical stimuli include organic material, parasites, or even damage that displaces mantle tissue to another part of the mollusk's body. These small particles or organisms gain entry when the shell valves are open for feeding or respiration. In cultured pearls, the irritant is typically an introduced piece of the mantle epithelium, with or without a spherical bead (beaded or beadless cultured pearls).


title: Pearl

text: Natural pearls are nearly 100% calcium carbonate and conchiolin. It is thought that natural pearls form under a set of accidental conditions when a microscopic intruder or parasite enters a bivalve mollusk and settles inside the shell. The mollusk, irritated by the intruder, forms a pearl sac of external mantle tissue cells and secretes the calcium carbonate and conchiolin to cover the irritant. This secretion process is repeated many times, thus producing a pearl. Natural pearls come in many shapes, with perfectly round ones being comparatively rare.


title: Pearl

text: Typically, the build-up of a natural pearl consists of a brown central zone formed by columnar calcium carbonate (usually calcite, sometimes columnar aragonite) and a yellowish to white outer zone consisting of nacre (tabular aragonite). In a pearl cross-section such as the diagram, these two different materials can be seen. The presence of columnar calcium carbonate rich in organic material indicates juvenile mantle tissue that formed during the early stage of pearl development. Displaced living cells with a well-defined task may continue to perform their function in their new location, often resulting in a cyst. Such displacement may occur via an injury. The fragile rim of the shell is exposed and is prone to damage and injury. Crabs, other predators and parasites such as worm larvae may produce traumatic attacks and cause injuries in which some external mantle tissue cells are disconnected from their layer. Embedded in the conjunctive tissue of the mantle, these cells may survive and form a small pocket in which they continue to secrete calcium carbonate, their natural product. The pocket is called a pearl sac, and grows with time by cell division. The juvenile mantle tissue cells, according to their stage of growth, secrete columnar calcium carbonate from pearl sac's inner surface. In time, the pearl sac's external mantle cells proceed to the formation of tabular aragonite. When the transition to nacre secretion occurs, the brown pebble becomes covered with a nacreous coating. During this process, the pearl sac seems to travel into the shell; however, the sac actually stays in its original relative position the mantle tissue while the shell itself grows. After a couple of years, a pearl forms and the shell may be found by a lucky pearl fisher.


title: Pearl

text: Cultured pearls are the response of the shell to a tissue implant. A tiny piece of mantle tissue (called a "graft") from a donor shell is transplanted into a recipient shell, causing a pearl sac to form into which the tissue precipitates calcium carbonate. There are a number of methods for producing cultured pearls: using freshwater or seawater shells, transplanting the graft into the mantle or into the gonad, and adding a spherical bead as a nucleus. Most saltwater cultured pearls are grown with beads. Trade names of cultured pearls are Akoya (), white or golden South sea, and black Tahitian. Most beadless cultured pearls are mantle-grown in freshwater shells in China, and are known as freshwater cultured pearls.


title: Pearl

text: Cultured pearls can be distinguished from natural pearls by X-ray examination. Nucleated cultured pearls are often 'preformed' as they tend to follow the shape of the implanted shell bead nucleus. After a bead is inserted into the oyster, it secretes a few layers of nacre around the bead; the resulting cultured pearl can then be harvested in as few as twelve to eighteen months.


title: Pearl

text: When a cultured pearl with a bead nucleus is X-rayed, it reveals a different structure to that of a natural pearl (see diagram). A beaded cultured pearl shows a solid center with no concentric growth rings, whereas a natural pearl shows a series of concentric growth rings. A beadless cultured pearl (whether of freshwater or saltwater origin) may show growth rings, but also a complex central cavity, witness of the first precipitation of the young pearl sac.


title: Pearl

text: Some imitation pearls (also called shell pearls) are simply made of mother-of-pearl, coral or conch shell, while others are made from glass and are coated with a solution containing fish scales called "essence d'Orient".


title: Pearl

text: A well-equipped gem testing laboratory can distinguish natural pearls from cultured pearls by using gemological X-ray equipment to examine the center of a pearl. With X-rays it is possible to see the growth rings of the pearl, where the layers of calcium carbonate are separated by thin layers of conchiolin. The differentiation of natural pearls from non-beaded cultured pearls can be very difficult without the use of this X-ray technique.


title: Pearl

text: Natural and cultured pearls can be distinguished from imitation pearls using a microscope. Another method of testing for imitations is to rub two pearls against each other. Imitation pearls are completely smooth, but natural and cultured pearls are composed of nacre platelets, making both feel slightly gritty.


title: Pearl

text: Fine quality natural pearls are very rare jewels. Their values are determined similarly to those of other precious gems, according to size, shape, color, quality of surface, orient and luster.


title: Pearl

text: Single natural pearls are often sold as collectors' items, or set as centerpieces in unique jewelry. Very few matched strands of natural pearls exist, and those that do often sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. (In 1917, jeweler Pierre Cartier purchased the Fifth Avenue mansion that is now the New York Cartier store in exchange for a matched double strand of natural pearls Cartier had been collecting for years; at the time, it was valued at US$1 million.)


title: Pearl

text: The introduction and advance of the cultured pearl hit the pearl industry hard. Pearl dealers publicly disputed the authenticity of these new cultured products, and left many consumers uneasy and confused about their much lower prices. Essentially, the controversy damaged the images of both natural and cultured pearls. By the 1950s, when a significant number of women in developed countries could afford their own cultured pearl necklace, natural pearls were reduced to a small, exclusive niche in the pearl industry.


title: Pearl

text: Previously, natural pearls were found in many parts of the world. Present day natural pearling is confined mostly to seas off Bahrain. Australia also has one of the world's last remaining fleets of pearl diving ships. Australian pearl divers dive for south sea pearl oysters to be used in the cultured south sea pearl industry. The catch of pearl oysters is similar to the numbers of oysters taken during the natural pearl days. Hence significant numbers of natural pearls are still found in the Australian Indian Ocean waters from wild oysters. X-ray examination is required to positively verify natural pearls found today.


title: Pearl

text: A keshi pearl is a pearl composed entirely of nacre and results from mishaps in the culturing process. Most are quite small, typically only a few millimeters in diameter, and are often irregular in shape. In seeding a cultured pearl, a piece of mantle muscle from a sacrificed oyster is placed with a bead of mother of pearl within a host oyster. If the piece of mantle should slip off the bead, a keshi pearl forms of baroque shape about the mantle piece. Therefore, while a keshi pearl could be considered superior to cultured pearls with a mother of pearl bead center, in the cultured pearl industry the oyster's resources used to create a mistaken all-nacre baroque pearl is a drain on the production of the intended round cultured pearl. Therefore, the pearl industry is making ongoing attempts to improve culturing technique so that keshi pearls do not occur. All-nacre pearls may one day be limited to natural found pearls. Today many "keshi" pearls are actually intentional, with post-harvest shells returned to the water to regenerate a pearl in the existing pearl sac.


title: Pearl

text: Tahitian pearls, frequently referred to as black pearls, are highly valued because of their rarity; the culturing process for them dictates a smaller volume output and they can never be mass-produced because, in common with most sea pearls, the oyster can only be nucleated with one pearl at a time, while freshwater mussels are capable of multiple pearl implants. Before the days of cultured pearls, black pearls were rare and highly valued for the simple reason that white pearl oysters rarely produced naturally black pearls, and black pearl oysters rarely produced any natural pearls at all.


title: Pearl

text: Since the development of pearl culture technology, the black pearl oysters "Pinctada margaritifera" found in Tahiti and many other Pacific islands including the Cook Islands and Fiji are being extensively used for producing cultured pearls. The rarity of the black cultured pearl is now a "comparative" issue. The black cultured pearl is rare when compared to Chinese freshwater cultured pearls, and Japanese and Chinese akoya cultured pearls, and is more valuable than these pearls. However, it is more abundant than the South Sea pearl, which is more valuable than the black cultured pearl. This is simply because the black pearl oyster "Pinctada margaritifera" is far more abundant than the elusive, rare, and larger south sea pearl oyster "Pinctada maxima", which cannot be found in lagoons, but which must be dived for in a rare number of deep ocean habitats or grown in hatcheries.


title: Pearl

text: Natural black pearls are rare, with black pearls having a body color that may be assessed as silver, silver blue, gold, brown-black, green-black, or black.


title: Pearl

text: Black cultured pearls from the black pearl oyster – "Pinctada margaritifera" – are not South Sea pearls, although they are often mistakenly described as black South Sea pearls. In the absence of an official definition for the pearl from the black all use to, these pearls are usually referred to as "black pearls".


title: Pearl

text: The correct definition of a South Sea pearl – as described by CIBJO and GIA – is a pearl produced by the "Pinctada maxima" pearl oyster. South Sea pearls are the color of their host "Pinctada maxima" oyster – and can be white, silver, pink, gold, cream, and any combination of these basic colors, including overtones of the various colors of the rainbow displayed in the pearl nacre of the oyster shell itself.


title: Pearl

text: South Sea pearls are the largest and rarest of the cultured pearls – making them the most valuable. Prized for their exquisitely beautiful 'orient' or lustre, South Sea pearls are now farmed in various parts of the world where the "Pinctada maxima" oysters can be found, with the finest South Sea pearls being produced by Paspaley along the remote coastline of North-Western Australia. White and silver colored South Sea pearls tend to come from the Broome area of Australia, while golden colored ones are more prevalent in the Philippines and Indonesia.


title: Pearl

text: A farm in the Gulf of California, Mexico, is culturing pearls from the black lipped "Pinctada mazatlanica" oysters and the rainbow lipped "Pteria sterna" oysters. Also called Concha Nácar, the pearls from these rainbow lipped oysters fluoresce red under ultraviolet light.


title: Pearl

text: Biologically speaking, under the right set of circumstances, almost any shelled mollusk can produce some kind of pearl. However, most of these molluskan pearls have no luster or iridescence. The great majority of mollusk species produce pearls which are not attractive, and are sometimes not even very durable. Such pearls usually have no value at all, except perhaps to a scientist or collector, or as a curiosity. These objects used to be referred to as "calcareous concretions" by some gemologists, even though a malacologist would still consider them to be pearls. Valueless pearls of this type are sometimes found in edible mussels, edible oysters, escargot snails, and so on. The GIA and CIBJO now simply use the term 'pearl' (or, where appropriate, the more descriptive term 'non-nacreous pearl') when referring to such items and, under Federal Trade Commission rules, various mollusk pearls may be referred to as 'pearls', without qualification.


title: Pearl

text: A few species produce pearls that can be of interest as gemstones. These species include the bailer shell "Melo", the giant clam "Tridacna", various scallop species, Pen shells "Pinna", and the "Haliotis iris" species of abalone. Pearls of abalone, or paua, are mabe pearls, or blister pearls, unique to New Zealand waters and are commonly referred to as 'blue pearls'. They are admired for their incredible luster and naturally bright vibrant colors that are often compared to opal. Another example is the conch pearl (sometimes referred to simply as the 'pink pearl'), which is found very rarely growing between the mantle and the shell of the queen conch or pink conch, "Strombus gigas", a large sea snail or marine gastropod from the Caribbean Sea. These pearls, which are often pink in color, are a by-product of the conch fishing industry, and the best of them display a shimmering optical effect related to chatoyance known as 'flame structure'.


title: Pearl

text: Somewhat similar gastropod pearls, this time more orange in hue, are (again very rarely) found in the horse conch "Triplofusus papillosus".


title: Pearl

text: The second largest pearl known was found in the Philippines in 1934 and is known as the "Pearl of Lao Tzu". It is a naturally occurring, non-nacreous, calcareous concretion (pearl) from a giant clam. Because it did not grow in a pearl oyster it is not pearly; instead the surface is glossy like porcelain. Other pearls from giant clams are known to exist, but this is a particularly large one weighing 14 lb (6.4 kg).


title: Pearl

text: The largest known pearl (also from a giant clam) is the Pearl of Puerto, also found in the Philippines by a fisherman from Puerto Princesa, Palawan Island. The enormous pearl is 30 cm wide (1 ft), 67 cm long (2.2 ft) and weighs 75 lb (34 kg).


title: Pearl

text: The ancient chronicle Mahavamsa mentions the thriving pearl industry in the port of Oruwella in the Gulf of Mannar in Sri Lanka. It also records that eight varieties of pearls accompanied Prince Vijaya's embassy to the Pandyan king as well as king Devanampiya Tissa's embassy to Emperor Ashoka. Pliny the Elder (23–79AD) praised the pearl fishery of the Gulf as most productive in the world.


title: Pearl

text: For thousands of years, seawater pearls were retrieved by divers in the Indian Ocean in areas such as the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Mannar. Evidence also suggest a prehistoric origin to pearl diving in these regions. Starting in the Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD), the Chinese hunted extensively for seawater pearls in the South China Sea. Tanka pearl divers of twelfth century China attached ropes to their waists in order to be safely brought back up to the surface.


title: Pearl

text: When Spanish conquistadors arrived in the Western Hemisphere, they discovered that around the islands of Cubagua and Margarita, some 200 km north of the Venezuelan coast, was an extensive pearl bed (a bed of pearl oysters). One discovered and named pearl, La Peregrina pearl, was offered to Philip II of Spain who intended to give it as a gift for his daughter on the occasion of her marriage, but the King found it so beautiful that he kept it for himself. Later, he elevated it to be part of the Spanish Crown Jewel. From then on, the pearl was recorded in every royal inventory for more than 200 years. According to Garcilasso de la Vega, who says that he saw La Peregrina at Seville in 1607, this was found at Panama in 1560 by a slave worker who was rewarded with his liberty, and his owner with the office of alcalde of Panama.


title: Pearl

text: Margarita pearls are extremely difficult to find today and are known for their unique yellowish color.


title: Pearl

text: Before the beginning of the 20th century, pearl hunting was the most common way of harvesting pearls. Divers manually pulled oysters from ocean floors and river bottoms and checked them individually for pearls. Not all mussels and oysters produce pearls. In a haul of three tons, only three or four oysters will produce perfect pearls.


title: Pearl

text: Pearls were one of the attractions which drew Julius Caesar to Britain. They are, for the most part, freshwater pearls from mussels. Pearling was banned in the U.K. in 1998 due to the endangered status of river mussels. Discovery and publicity about the sale for a substantial sum of the Abernethy pearl in the River Tay had resulted in heavy exploitation of mussel colonies during the 1970s and 80s by weekend warriors. When it was permitted it was carried on mainly by Scottish Travellers who found pearls varied from river to river with the River Oykel in the Highlands being noted for the finest rose-pink pearls. There are two firms in Scotland that are licensed to sell pre-1998 freshwater pearls.


title: Pearl

text: Today, the cultured pearls on the market can be divided into two categories. The first category covers the beaded cultured pearls, including akoya, South Sea and Tahiti. These pearls are gonad grown, and usually one pearl is grown at a time. This limits the number of pearls at a harvest period. The pearls are usually harvested after one year for akoya, 2–4 years for Tahitian and South Sea, and 2–7 years for freshwater. This perliculture process was first developed by the British biologist William Saville-Kent who passed the information along to Tatsuhei Mise and Tokichi Nishikawa from Japan.


title: Pearl

text: The second category includes the non-beaded freshwater cultured pearls, like the Biwa or Chinese pearls. As they grow in the mantle, where on each wing up to 25 grafts can be implanted, these pearls are much more frequent and saturate the market completely. An impressive improvement in quality has taken place over ten years when the former rice-grain-shaped pebbles are compared with the near round pearls of today. Later, large near perfect round bead nucleated pearls up to 15mm in diameter have been produced with metallic luster.


title: Pearl

text: The nucleus bead in a beaded cultured pearl is generally a polished sphere made from freshwater mussel shell. Along with a small piece of mantle tissue from another mollusk (donor shell) to serve as a catalyst for the pearl sac, it is surgically implanted into the gonad (reproductive organ) of a saltwater mollusk. In freshwater perliculture, only the piece of tissue is used in most cases, and is inserted into the fleshy mantle of the host mussel. South Sea and Tahitian pearl oysters, also known as "Pinctada maxima" and "Pinctada margaritifera", which survive the subsequent surgery to remove the finished pearl, are often implanted with a new, larger beads as part of the same procedure and then returned to the water for another 2–3 years of growth.


title: Pearl

text: Despite the common misperception, Mikimoto did not discover the process of pearl culture. The accepted process of pearl culture was developed by the British Biologist William Saville-Kent in Australia and brought to Japan by Tokichi Nishikawa and Tatsuhei Mise. Nishikawa was granted the patent in 1916, and married the daughter of Mikimoto. Mikimoto was able to use Nishikawa's technology. After the patent was granted in 1916, the technology was immediately commercially applied to akoya pearl oysters in Japan in 1916. Mise's brother was the first to produce a commercial crop of pearls in the akoya oyster. Mitsubishi's Baron Iwasaki immediately applied the technology to the south sea pearl oyster in 1917 in the Philippines, and later in Buton, and Palau. Mitsubishi was the first to produce a cultured south sea pearl – although it was not until 1928 that the first small commercial crop of pearls was successfully produced.


title: Pearl

text: The original Japanese cultured pearls, known as akoya pearls, are produced by a species of small pearl oyster, "Pinctada fucata martensii", which is no bigger than in size, hence akoya pearls larger than 10 mm in diameter are extremely rare and highly priced. Today, a hybrid mollusk is used in both Japan and China in the production of akoya pearls.


title: Pearl

text: Cultured Pearls were sold in cans for the export market. These were packed in Japan by the I.C.P. Canning Factory (International Pearl Company L.T.D.) in Nagasaki Pref. Japan.


title: Pearl

text: Mitsubishi commenced pearl culture with the South Sea pearl oyster in 1916, as soon as the technology patent was commercialized. By 1931 this project was showing signs of success, but was upset by the death of Tatsuhei Mise. Although the project was recommenced after Tatsuhei's death, the project was discontinued at the beginning of WWII before significant productions of pearls were achieved.


title: Pearl

text: After WWII, new south sea pearl projects were commenced in the early 1950s at Kuri Bay and Port Essington in Australia, and Burma. Japanese companies were involved in all projects using technicians from the original Mitsubishi South Sea pre-war projects. Kuri Bay is now the location of one of the largest and most well-known pearl farms owned by Paspaley, the biggest producer of South Sea pearls in the world.


title: Pearl

text: In 2010, China overtook Japan in akoya pearl production. Japan has all but ceased its production of akoya pearls smaller than 8 mm. Japan maintains its status as a pearl processing center, however, and imports the majority of Chinese akoya pearl production. These pearls are then processed (often simply matched and sorted), relabeled as product of Japan, and exported.


title: Pearl

text: In the past two decades, cultured pearls have been produced using larger oysters in the south Pacific and Indian Ocean. The largest pearl oyster is the "Pinctada maxima", which is roughly the size of a dinner plate. South Sea pearls are characterized by their large size and warm luster. Sizes up to 14 mm in diameter are not uncommon. In 2013, Indonesia Pearl supplied 43 percent of South Sea Pearls international market. The other significant producers are Australia, Philippines, Myanmar and Malaysia.


title: Pearl

text: In 1914, pearl farmers began growing cultured freshwater pearls using the pearl mussels native to Lake Biwa. This lake, the largest and most ancient in Japan, lies near the city of Kyoto. The extensive and successful use of the Biwa Pearl Mussel is reflected in the name "Biwa pearls", a phrase which was at one time nearly synonymous with freshwater pearls in general. Since the time of peak production in 1971, when Biwa pearl farmers produced six tons of cultured pearls, pollution has caused the virtual extinction of the industry. Japanese pearl farmers recently cultured a hybrid pearl mussel – a cross between Biwa Pearl Mussels and a closely related species from China, "Hyriopsis cumingi", in Lake Kasumigaura. This industry has also nearly ceased production, due to pollution. Currently, the Belpearl company based out of Kobe, Japan continues to purchase the remaining Kasumiga-ura pearls.


title: Pearl

text: Japanese pearl producers also invested in producing cultured pearls with freshwater mussels in the region of Shanghai, China. China has since become the world's largest producer of freshwater pearls, producing more than 1,500 metric tons per year (in addition to metric measurements, Japanese units of measurement such as the kan and momme are sometimes encountered in the pearl industry).


title: Pearl

text: Led by pearl pioneer John Latendresse and his wife Chessy, the United States began farming cultured freshwater pearls in the mid-1960s. "National Geographic" magazine introduced the American cultured pearl as a commercial product in their August 1985 issue. The Tennessee pearl farm has emerged as a tourist destination in recent years, but commercial production of freshwater pearls has ceased.


title: Pearl

text: For many cultured pearl dealers and wholesalers, the preferred weight measure used for loose pearls and pearl strands is the momme. Momme is a weight measure used by the Japanese for centuries. Today, momme weight is still the standard unit of measure used by most pearl dealers to communicate with pearl producers and wholesalers. One momme corresponds to 1/1000 kan. Reluctant to give up tradition, the Japanese government formalized the kan measure in 1891 as being exactly 3.75 kilograms or 8.28 pounds. Hence, 1 momme = 3.75 grams or 3750 milligrams.


title: Pearl

text: In the United States, during the 19th and 20th centuries, through trade with Japan in silk cloth the momme became a unit indicating the quality of silk cloth.


title: Pearl

text: Though millimeter size range is typically the first factor in determining a cultured pearl necklace's value, the momme weight of pearl necklace will allow the buyer to quickly determine if the necklace is properly proportioned. This is especially true when comparing the larger south sea and Tahitian pearl necklaces.


title: Pearl

text: The value of the pearls in jewelry is determined by a combination of the luster, color, size, lack of surface flaw and symmetry that are appropriate for the type of pearl under consideration. Among those attributes, luster is the most important differentiator of pearl quality according to jewelers.


title: Pearl

text: All factors being equal, however, the larger the pearl the more valuable it is. Large, perfectly round pearls are rare and highly valued. Teardrop-shaped pearls are often used in pendants.


title: Pearl

text: Pearls are generally of spherical shapes. Perfectly round pearls are the rarest and most valuable shape. Semi-rounds are also used in necklaces or in pieces where the shape of the pearl can be disguised to look like it is a perfectly round pearl. Button pearls are like a slightly flattened round pearl and can also make a necklace, but are more often used in single pendants or earrings where the back half of the pearl is covered, making it look like a larger, rounder pearl.


title: Pearl

text: Pear-shaped pearls sometimes look like teardrop pearls and are most often seen in earrings, pendants, or as a center pearl in a necklace. Baroque pearls have a different appeal; they are often highly irregular with unique and interesting shapes. They are also commonly seen in necklaces. Circled pearls are characterized by concentric ridges, or rings, around the body of the pearl.


title: Pearl

text: In general, cultured pearls are less valuable than natural pearls, whereas imitation pearls have almost no value. One way that jewelers can determine whether a pearl is cultured or natural is to have a gemlab perform an X-ray examination of the pearl. If X-rays reveals a nucleus, the pearl is likely a bead-nucleated saltwater pearl. If no nucleus is present, but irregular and small dark inner spots indicating a cavity are visible, combined with concentric rings of organic substance, the pearl is likely a cultured freshwater. Cultured freshwater pearls can often be confused for natural pearls which present as homogeneous pictures which continuously darken toward the surface of the pearl. Natural pearls will often show larger cavities where organic matter has dried out and decomposed.


title: Pearl

text: There is a special vocabulary used to describe the length of pearl necklaces. While most other necklaces are simply referred to by their physical measurement, pearl necklaces are named by how low they hang when worn around the neck. A "collar", measuring 10 to 13 inches or 25 to 33 cm in length, sits directly against the throat and does not hang down the neck at all; collars are often made up of multiple strands of pearls. "Pearl chokers", measuring 14 to 16 inches or 35 to 41 cm in length, nestle just at the base of the neck. A strand called a "princess length", measuring 17 to 19 inches or 43 to 48 cm in length, comes down to or just below the collarbone. A "matinee length", measuring 20 to 24 inches or 50 to 60 cm in length, falls just above the breasts. An "opera length", measuring 28 to 35 inches or 70 to 90 cm in length, will be long enough to reach the breastbone or sternum of the wearer; and longer still, a "pearl rope", measuring more than 45 inches or 115 cm in length, is any length that falls down farther than an "opera".


title: Pearl

text: Necklaces can also be classified as uniform, or graduated. In a uniform strand of pearls, all pearls are classified as the same size, but actually fall in a range. A uniform strand of akoya pearls, for example, will measure within 0.5 mm. So a strand will never be 7 mm, but will be 6.5–7 mm. Freshwater pearls, Tahitian pearls, and South Sea pearls all measure to a full millimeter when considered uniform.


title: Pearl

text: A graduated strand of pearls most often has at least 3 mm of differentiation from the ends to the center of the necklace. Popularized in the United States during the 1950s by the GIs bringing strands of cultured akoya pearls home from Japan, a 3.5 momme, 3 mm to 7 mm graduated strand was much more affordable than a uniform strand because most of the pearls were small.


title: Pearl

text: Earrings and necklaces can also be classified on the grade of the color of the pearl: saltwater and freshwater pearls come in many different colors. While white, and more recently black, saltwater pearls are by far the most popular, other color tints can be found on pearls from the oceans. Pink, blue, champagne, green, and even purple saltwater pearls can be encountered, but to collect enough of these rare colors to form a complete string of the same size and same shade can take years.


title: Pearl

text: The vast majority of inexpensive colored pearls have been subjected to some form of dye, often a fabric dye. This dye will only tend to penetrate the first layer or two of nacre, but this is enough to impart vivid and sometimes garish color to otherwise white pearls. Truly valuable pearls are never dyed, and this process is not believed to add and in most cases would only subtract from their market value.