Please help me identify this seashell from Asia

[greengreen]

Hi Dave,

Thank you very much for your information. I believe this mussel shell is from South East Asia but am not sure exactly from which particular country. My friend has a situation regarding the spoons made from this seashell and I really appreciate your opinion. Below is the story:

He has spoons (about 4.5" long) made from this exact mussel family and he is selling them and clearly stated that these spoons are mother of pearl spoons. I am attaching a picture of one of the spoons and this mussel shell together. He sold the spoons to a customer and this customer wrote to him, I quote:

"This is not mother of pearl, its male troca shell(oyok) Trochidae"

My friend then wrote to her a letter telling her that this spoons are Mother of pearl by taking the definition of mother of pearl from the Webster dictionary "the hard pearly iridescent substance forming the inner layer of a mollusk shell"

After that he got this message from the customer:

“thanks for the clarification.. i guess my 4 years biology mollusk major didnt help at all.. i need to go back to the dictionary for what a genuine mother of pearl really is.. your shell is troca or family of troca , shelled mollusk , non porcellaneous and non nacreous , which gives it a dull finish non iridiscent shine...i hope that helps... your supplier in Asia should be able to tell you its scientific name"

Believe me, this is not a letter from goodwill because at the same time this angry customer left a very bad review on his website saying that the spoons are "not mother of pearl, it's troca shell, hense it looks and feels like plastic" .

My friend was angry too because the spoons are NOT made from Troca shell, they are from the same exact mussel I just showed you. How can a spoon like the one you are seeing is made from spiral troca shell. He believes this customer is ignorant despite what she claims her 4 years studying mollusk and wants to write a letter to respond to this customer to show she is absolutely wrong.

Please give your very objective opinion in this case and what you think my friend should write to this customer. My friend is angry too and he wants to give her a lesson.

Many thanks and appreciate your opinion!!

<img src="http://img.auctiva.com/imgdata/8/1/5/0/0/7/webimg/208158658_o.jpg" alt="http://img.auctiva.com/imgdata/8/1/5/0/0/7/webimg/208158658_o.jpg" style="border:0" />