| China, are these guaranteed female fish ? ( as in 'money back' or 'credit' if they are males?)
Bob Brudd is doing a presentation on skin and quality at the AKCA seminar if anyone is interested. I'm not sure if it is a presentation just for the judges or the public? But if you get a chance to attend, I think it will be enlightening.
'Skin' is a condition of age. And good skin has a changing look as the fish passes thru juvenile stage into the sexually mature stage and onto the mature adult stage.
So buying a tategoi is a tracking of the stages of development from juvenile to immature to mature skin.
But if a fish to have a certain look as a mature fish, it must have the basic ingredients as a fry and juvenile to even have a chance of looking like a high class fish as a mature adult. In this regard, tateshita can't become a swam, males can't become the swan and 'if I hope hard enough' koi can not become the swan.
As I've said many times here and elsewhere- all tategoi are unfinished, but not all unfinished fish are tategoi.
Super Kindai hit on something that should not go un-noticed;
koi with good skin usually also have good color and beni plate appointments. Not always of course. But without good skin/shiro ground, the chances are zero for the rest to come along.
So good skin is often described as soft, translucent and silk like. These are very descriptive words to give you the feeling but not helpful as a tool of analysis.
Good baby skin is pure. That is, it is absent of melanin ( this should not be confused with showa, which are black fish). It is filled with reflecting cells however. This is what accounts for luster. And these cells are the first to develop in new thin dermis.
As the fish grows, so does the skin's thickness and complexity. The window pane epidermis becomes more opaque as the genetics begin to express themselves. The skin expands as the scales grow out and eventually overlap one another. In this process, the skin is carried outward to create layers both over and under each scale. Color is pretty raw at this point but characteristics of the color cells can be gleaned and tiny 'super stars' can be picked out. This process of culling is the first edition of 'American Idol' in that the failings are identified and one by one the less likely prospects are eliminated. In this process, it is the skin itself and the bone structure that counts most for tategoi. The hints of pattern are important of course, for both commercial reasons and for future prospect choices. But as I said, without the shiroji, there is really nothing to build on or hope for in the long run.
Gotta catch a plane for the left coast , so to be continued-----
JR | 
03-14-2008
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