Message #45884

[forestman]

When I saw some suggestion the bottle Albert had found was not coral I had a quick look about the lines on coral and how to check if it is real or not, hence the test with lemon juice as I had always assumed mine was real.

Corals are formed by living organisms which secrete Ca CO3 (is this a type of limestone ?) forming a sort of skeleton in which the organism lives. This produces the growth lines on coral which look like the Schrenger lines in ivory.

Different corals grow at different rates and take all sorts of different forms. The coral in the bottles Albert and I have shown have very clear growth lines and probably come from the sort of branching coral most people would be familiar with and which in smaller bits are used on some bottles for stoppers.

From the coral stoppers I have (normal ones and not branch type ones) the growth lines are much less distinct than on these bottles (you need a loupe to see them) and far closer together. I have yet to hold a proper carved coral bottle but I imagine they are carved from this "better" coral in whatever form it takes.

Regards, Adrian.

Japan has coral in it's waters but China doesn't which may mean some coral bottles are made in Japan?