Info may be interesting, but dont take it for reality unless evidence is proven.. Which in the most cases can not be done.
That's evidence there.
Sorry, Japan did reject the plants with a 1D. Australia accepted. Plants I saw at JJ and other markets had no buds.
When they reject, they must tell the CITES office in Thailand the reason, so you need to ask for that, then you can resend. That's the way it works ( by the way, sometimes Japan rejected FLASKS with a CITES, because flasks from art prop parents etc... are exempted from CITES)
I am sure that the plants had buds, at least the batch I saw, you should have a look again, the buds are in the crown, the spike not yet elongated. I would say about 70% of the batches of real thaianum I have seen were like that a month ago. They all had mites too. And it is indeed possible to tell apart thaianum from small godefroyae pretty easily, from experience.
Xavier, that ebayer if I am not mistaken is a regular Ebay faker. Why use that person as an example? He sells fakes and continually changes his name. If this is proof, well it makes a fraud.
No, you mistake once again. That ebayer is Baumann Orchids, a company that exists, is legal, since about 30 years. It was a very famous name in the orchid trade before. The Excel file is Elsner Orchids, who made most of the breeding of red phalaenopsis in Germany 40 years ago, and was a key breeder for Phalaenopsis. They had to turn to the species trade when the phal hybrid market was taken over by Taiwan... Two big nurseries, so that's proof of what I say. I do not condone. I am just sad that there are wild collected plants in the trade WITHOUT PROPER CARE INSTRUCTIONS. Many will die.
By the way, the fake fraudster on ebay (botanicalsandmore), I have some doubt about his real identity. If so, he is quite important in the 'honest' paphiopedilum trade as well. One of the auctions had a picture I took myself in Sabah, and I sent that picture only to 1 person. Another one has a concolor album (from Yen in Thailand), I took the picture myself as well, and because it was a wire hanger, I had to take the plant, so there is my shirt on the plant photo (this photo appeared as well on ebay a couple of times, but different cutting). However I do not want to badmouth anyone, so I stay quiet. But I really have a doubt
Interesting you say the ex-TOGA president back your argument as he just said that HS is fine and a friend.
Mmmh... First it depends which former president, but I will not extend about that.
Second if you just ask like that they will not reply anything bad. In a way HS is fine, they are big customers, big suppliers ( to many resellers who put their clonal names and tags on their plants...), they are very good growers, even if their conditions are too extreme, antibiotics + aminoacids, so when the plants are grown elsewhere they need a very long adaption, and some die in the process. Many of their flasks are not what they are supposed to be, it gets proven more and more over time (my roth ro-6 blabla, the gigantifolium flasks sold to my friends in Germany, some thaianum flasks that have shiny leaves and wrong tesselation, the Australian flasks posted here, and more people coming to complain...). It could be a general lab mistake as well, though they have their own lab, so
You know Brett, if you talk to the key people in Thailand, not some wrangler, they know me very well, and they can back my statements. I have a close friend who has a lot of rothschildianum in Thailand, he bought a lot from Taiwan as well, several suppliers, ask him how many **** he bloomed with great parentage, and how many fake roths (hybrids) he bloomed. I did not buy the plants together with him, and I got the same thing happening. So...
One more disturbing thing, he had a rothschildianum, different leaves ( because of a different grower, so the leaves were more yellow), that was an hybrid again, exactly the same type as my 'Arschfick' I posted, but different parentage on the tags.
I will tell another story about Taiwan as well. About 25 years ago, Terry Root from the Orchid Zone released sanderianum 'Deep Pockets' x 'Jacob's Ladder' seedlings, over several years.
In 1994, two different Taiwanese people, very important in the trade, told me that they are fake, they are Prince Edward of York (in fact I think someone tried to screw Terry Root heavily from the inside of his company at the time he made the DP x JL cross, at least that's what I have heard). I told Terry Root, who did not believe me, and one of his close friends, they did not trust it, because those very same customers still bought a lot of those, even more than before.
When the fact was proven, years later, those two Taiwanese came to the Orchid Zone to reclaim the money. I was surprised, and another Taiwanese, long time friend, told me how it worked:
- sanderianum from the Orchid Zone had the OZ tag. They were easy to resell, with a huge profit.
- when they realized they were fake, they still traded those in Taiwan, making a lot of profit, because they had the OZ tag (hence not their responsibility for their own reputation), and the profit for the investment was excellent.
- When the game was over, because some bloomed at the OZ, the Taiwanese came to reclaim, like most of the resellers, the money for those fake sanderianum. And Terry Root did good on that, replaced/refunded EVERYTHING. He was honest, but stupid in a way. He should have asked proof that his resellers were refunding the plants as well...
- In fact, the Taiwanese, who reclaimed the highest amount of money, did NOT refund to their customers, except if each, individual plant was brought back to them IN BLOOM one by one. They said 'some were genuine sanderianum, some not, so we refund only the plants in bloom'.
Of course, out of the thousands of sanderianum they traded from the Orchid Zone, many died. Those were pure profit ( Terry Root repaid their investment, plus they got those free plants already paid). Many, because they were resold a couple of times ( so they rejected those, because maybe their customer's customer swapped the tags). Some as of today did not bloom yet. A few were replaced at the end of the day. And they refused to refund some too because according to them the Orchid Zone did not refund (wrong...).
I will more about that, they even had the schedule that, when they will be proven to be fake, they would ask Terry Root for many of his motherplants to pay back the bill of those 'fake' sanderianum. Over a decade of trade, they calculated the Orchid Zone could not afford to pay back at once all those wrong sanderianum. They were luckily wrong, but you see how it works.
One of the former TPS president too told me (he is very kind and optimistic) that the trade is cleaning by itself, and with time all will be fine and beautiful. I think it may well be so, but it will take time...
So Brett, you see I know a lot of things about the orchid trade anyway, and I have reasons to be suspicious when the same group of people arrives and sell paphs with fantastic parentage, even if they have some fantastic plants with fantastic photos to show to the people.
