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Platinum Beginnings:
Silver Shadow, Golden End

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by Christopher Bock, Oshambala

In 1986-87, Cheryl Bennett of WeANDE Persians submitted an article to The Silver and Golden Persian Newsletter associated with ACFA concerning the story of one of her foundation silver females, who had changed from a pure silver color to a full pale golden color.

Stories of Silver Persian kittens turning to a beautiful Golden color as adults have been reported from time to time in the cat fancy. Author, Christopher Bock, shares his research into the history of this interesting phenomenon.

To the eye, CH Kelley Lane Contessa of WeANDE, Tessa, was a shaded silver Persian from Kelly Lane's Golden Arrow, a shaded golden, and out of Kelley Lane's Corey (a shaded silver), a full brother/sister breeding. Cheryl championed Tessa with CFA at age nine months or so (see photo) and then bred her. Tessa is behind five of the six WeANDE grand champions. At around age ten to twelve months, Tessa began showing signs of what would initially be considered the old tarnish or cream spotting so many have written about/discussed in the past.

Mary Caito (Gay Purr-ee Cattery) recently discussed with me a cat from a breeding at Gay Purr-ee who did indicate golden colored hair down his back/spine as he aged and she wrote of this and "several chinchillas who had interesting color on them" prior (United Silver Fanciers, June '87).

Mary notes she only used chinchilla silver to chinchilla silver in her breeding program.

Maddy Aquilino of Puffian Persians wrote in USF (Dec. '86) of a letter from Barbara Laudon who spoke of a silver cat she had purchased with "red showing from the top of his head to the tip of his tail." Maddy chalks it up in her writing as, "Not a result of the solid color in the background but rather, incomplete dominance of the golden gene."

Mrs. Helene Prose of Holland writes in USF (March '87) of "gold shading in silver kittens" in response to a query from Jane Howard (Jenwilli). Mrs. Prose comments "This is a genetic fact which is impossible to avoid," and that it " . . . happened because silver is incompletely dominant; it is not able to hide the recessive golden gene in most cases."

Many others have written reams about the appearance of cream, golden, red or brown spotting/strip/marking.

However, by age three years, Cheryl Bennett's Tessa was indeed a fully golden, albeit a pale golden, Persian. Since Tessa was sired by a shaded golden, it would be assumed that Tessa carried the golden gene (or more correctly to my mind, lacked a dominance of the Melanin inhibitor gene 'I' carried by all chinchilla and shaded silvers) and could give golden if bred to a golden.

However, an attempted breeding to a golden did not take and Tessa was never pregnant by a golden. She did give Cheryl some incredibly beautiful silver Persians without spotting or tarnish. Cheryl was often encouraged to take Tessa back to show as a golden, but did not. Cheryl's beloved Tessa passed away in August 1997, at 13 years of age.

My interest in this phenomenon was keen when Cheryl shared it with me a number of years ago, as I had a foundation female, WeANDE Silver Mist of Oshambhala, who was downline from Tessa. In fact, Tessa was Misty and her litter brother's granddam and great-granddam. Misty's litter brother is GC WeANDE Dreams Do Come True.

Additionally, the shaded golden Kelley Lane grandsire of my chinchilla golden foundation male, CH Chasshir's Rising Sun of Oshambhala, was Tessa's sire. Cheryl shared photos of Tessa at the time. I was duly amazed and had hoped to research the phenomena and publish what could be found. Very little could be found and the photos were set aside and the article went unwritten.

During that search for information, I did complete a lengthy pedigree of my male, Sunny, and traced him through his Kelley Lane grandsire and his dam, CH Papaandmama's Child of Chasshir, to Fanfare of Allington (Imp). But then, how many silver and golden Persians in the states are not connected to Miss Evelyn Langston's Allington chinchillas?

About the same time, Cheryl was indicating that a Tessa son, WeANDE Platinum Beginning, was also beginning to turn from silver to golden as an adult and, in fact, Plati did exactly that prior to going to live with Peggy Thompson of Danpeg. Plati's sire was a Mary Crary cat Boy Tage of WeANDE, a chinchilla silver, with a great deal of Mary Crary ancestry, along with Be-RU, Fayron, and Gray-Ivy.

Several years ago, an adult Persian imported to Australia from England was reported to have gone through the identical color change as an adult and my interest peaked again. Lynchard Silver Shadow (Imp UK) was brought to Australia as a snow white silver kitten by Eileen Simpson and was shown upon release from quarantine.

Vivienne Hall (Oxsarna) reports a judge did notice Shadow had a few gold hairs on his foot. Silver Shadow had to be approaching adult age by that time, and remained a silver cat at twelve months; although Vivienne reports he began to show a beige color. When Shadow was three years of age not only had he turned a full pale golden color as Tessa and Plati had, but he also went to live with the Halls at Oxsarna cattery. Vivienne had been looking for a silver/golden pedigree with Diadem cats behind; however, bred to a golden, CH Diadem Gold Digger of Oxsarna, Shadow has not produced golden. A silver offspring daughter of this breeding exported to New Zealand was reported to have undergone the same silver to golden color change, again at adult age.

Further, a Tessa great-granddaughter began growing a new coat color after spending her first full year as a silver. Born shaded silver, Ana-Lan's BB, bred by Joan Stitt, was turning a golden color by age two, as was her great-grandmother and her grandsire. BB's color ended fully golden. Her dam is a daughter of Plati from a breeding to a golden female, Ana-Lan Copper Penny of Danpeg. Given that a parent was golden, this cat would obviously have the genetic capacity to give golden kittens.

The line draws back to Tessa through BB's dam, Danpeg Betsy of Ana-Lan, a chinchilla silver; however, Betsy did not undergo this color change phenomenon. A half-brother of BB sharing the same dam in Danpeg Betsy, Ana-Lan's Sexy Legs, did begin undergoing the identical coat color change at nine months of age. Given the reports of both Tessa's son Plati, great-grandson Sexy Legs and, in New Zealand, Shadow's daughter, the gene or mutation for the color change phenomena would first appear to be sex-linked. However, since it is reported as having passed from a Tessa granddaughter to a daughter, BB, this may not be the case, In the direct line from Tessa, as far as is known, the gene or gene mutation skipped one generation, the dam of both BB and Sexy Legs.

My interest took me to Shadow's pedigree. In reviewing it, I looked for a cat common to WeANDE pedigrees and found, early on, Kelly Lane Andromeda, imported to England by Mr. and Mrs. Norman Cater of Furifriend cattery. Andromeda was by Wicklow Kerri of Kelly Lane out of Delphi Adelaide (of Charrade) and connected to Mary Crary Frivolous through Delphi Adelaide, a chinchilla silver by Sheromar Shawn out of Sheromar Charme of Mary Crary. Kerri's parents were Wicklow Seamus and Wicklow Wee People.

Knowing that the lines Cheryl Bennett worked with and those behind my own cats were connected closely to Wicklow, Delphi and Kitza, as well as Mary Crary, I hit the studbooks and attempted to connect a cat between Tessa, Plati and Shadow in recent history. Pouring through CFA Studbooks crosses one's eyes and leads into an abyss of long ago pedigrees. After many eye-crossings, and with the assistance of Janice Reichle and her excellent record keeping, I was able to connect Kelly Lane Andromeda to two Allington (Imp UK) cats. One of these cats was Hazeldene Felis, a chinchilla by CH Fidelio of Allington and out of CH Mandy of Allington and imported, I believe, by Mrs. James Mood of Delphi. The second was an early Beverly-Serrano silver, Beverly-Serrano Honey who was born prior to 1953 by Fanfare of Allington (Imp UK) x Lindy Lou of Beverly-Serrano. I arrived at the same question again; how many American silver/golden Persian lines are not connected to the Allington Imports.

Bean Ridge cattery imported, or at least used at stud, Wimauma Faustino of Allington in 1954 and other imported English chinchillas during the period of 1950-60 as well. Additionally, the CFA Studbooks indicated Mrs. Mood of Delphi worked with seal and blue-point cats around the same time, and Mrs. Ursula Zuest of Kitza worked with black smoke Persians as well as silvers. The Kitza and Delphi catteries were both located in San Diego, California, and worked together at times, along with Sheromar, Bon-err, Shawnee, Silver-Quest and Favors. In addition, the Gay Purr-ee cats Mary Caito spoke of were out of her Pride on Parade (Walnut Hill, Delphi and Sheromar).

Very late in this research, I was able to connect Kelley Lane Andromeda, the sire of Lynchard Silver Shadow in Australia, directly to Kelley Lane's Contessa, through Andromeda's grandsire (sire of Wicklow Seamus) who is Wicklow Donnybrook.

Here is was . . . Donnybrook was also Tessa's great-great grandsire through both her sire and dam and thus, Plati's great-great-great grandsire as well. On the other hand, my own foundation golden male is directly related to Wicklow Donnybrook through his grandsire, Tessa's sire, and, while breeding primarily for golden, I had yet to experience the phenomena of having a mature silver cat turn completely golden. Further, most of the balance of Andromeda's pedigree beginning with his sire's dam and his dam's parents, continued to elude me with little exception.

Finding nothing definitive or absolute here, I began to look at genetics. Roy Robinson speaks of Incomplete Dominance, Multiple Allelism (whereby a gene locus may mutate to produce a new allele on more than one occasion), minus alleles and plus alleles, Threshold Characters, and Rufism. All are too detailed for me to address here. However, Robinson does note that the exhibition silver and the chinchilla represent breeds in which selective breeding has operated to eliminate the polygenes. The outcome is a phenotype exceptionably devoid of yellow pigment, i.e., cream, yellow and red pigmentation. Yellow denotes the technical term for the pigment granule which produces all of these colors. The black tabby striping emerges are red striping of the same pattern and the intervening agouti areas become yellow or (and my preference of a color word rather than cream when describing a golden Persian and its undercoat) rich beige.

Robinson further comments, "It should never be overlooked that any polygenic complex has plus and minus polygenes and that diligent breeding will result in accumulations of either one or the other type in specific breeds."

However, Robinson continues "The cat has nineteen pairs of chromosomes and it is probable that each one contains some thousands of genes. While the number of known mutants are small, the chances are that these will be borne by different chromosomes." Various mutants will be inherited independently of each other.

Additionally, both coupled and separate linkage must be considered. "The inhibitor gene 'I' suppressed the development of pigment in the hair of the coat. It does this presumably by limiting the amount of pigment fed into the growing hair, because the typical expression is that of while hairs with colored tips."

I believe Carol Heide, an early golden enthusiast, stated it best in USF, Vol. VI, No. 3, where she wrote, "The key to this riddle is that all color is seen by the human eye in a reflected state, the effect of light reflecting off an object. Depending on how that object reflects light, we see 'colors'.

The coloring agent eumelanin (black/sepia), in its usual state and as seen under a microscope, has a round shape. This round shape reflects light as black. In the silver, the black coloring granules have absented themselves from most of the hair shaft. There, at the tips, they reflect light to appear black. There is a separate gene that causes this coloring granule to leave most of the hair shaft and clump itself at the end. This gene is what causes a shaded cat. The amount of dominance of this shaded gene is what causes a smoke to have half a hair shaft devoid of color and half a hair shaft to be full of color. This clumping gene is more dominant in the shaded silver, and therefore, the coloring is present in the far-reduced quantities, some quarter or less of the hair shaft. In the chinchilla silver, the coloring granule is almost absent, appearing only at the very tip of the hair shaft. In all cases, though, in silvers, the coloring granule (eumelanin, black/sepia), reflects light as black, because the coloring granule is round.

In the golden, the same chemical color factor in the coloring granule, eumelanin, is present, but an additional gene causes eumelanin to assume an elliptical shape, rather than round. This elliptical shape causes eumelanin to reflect light in varying shades of brown.

Another characteristic of the elongated eumelanin shape is that it does not absent itself completely from the lower portions of the hair shaft. Rather, it has a tendency to smear along the hair shaft, while still clumping at the tips. This smearing causes the hair shaft to reflect light in varying shades of golden-reddish-brown. The less eumelanin present in the hair shaft as a result of the smearing, the lighter the golden cat appears.

Eumelanin, black, is really sepia. Sepia in its strongest intensities is quite black appearing. In its weaker intensities, it is dark brown. As this coloring granule becomes more extended or elliptical, the more brown it appears. It is apparent to anyone's eye that brown contains reddish pigmentation and dark yellowish pigmentation. Therefore, in its reduced state, due to smearing along the hair shaft in the golden, the golden Persian can appear any color from rich copper-brown to bright, light apricot or reddish-honey with darker tipping at the end of the hair shaft."

One should note that under chemical analysis, there is NO phaeoeumelanin (red) present in the golden hair shaft. Cream, to this writer's eyes, is dilute red. Whether or not all litter siblings can inherit the late-color-change-gene written of here is unknown. Whether or not the gene can pass unknown from a sibling not exhibiting the color change phenomena to a daughter or son would be a case for further study. Indeed, further breeding with cats exhibiting these color change phenomena to Persians born golden, rather than silver (in the case of Tessa's progeny) would also be an avenue for collection of additional data. A report surfaced also, at the time of this writing, of two Persians presenting a golden coat color from birth who had produced a litter of two silver kittens and one golden offspring. This cannot be proven as none of the kittens survived. In speaking with the breeder at the time, I was assured that there were silver kittens in the litter. The breeder was one of long-standing work within the silver and golden color classes.

Copyright 1997-1999 Christopher Bock - All World Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part is prohibited unless expressly authorized by the author.

Related Articles:

See Silvers and Goldens

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