Hi Taylor,

All pearls older than 20 years were probably exposed to tobacco smoke frequently as smoking was still a social normalcy at that time. So, even non-smokers that wore their pearls to social events had them exposed to a lot of smoke. The resulting tar deposits wash off easily with salt slurry. Older pearls were also not as extensively bleached as they are nowadays and had thicker nacre that made bleaching harder. Hence you see more actual akoya colors (cream to beige) in vintage strands. These pearls never were white at any time in their history. Tobacco smoke is not the culprit in their failure to fit our current expectations but rather our current expectations of how pearls are supposed to look like.

Anyhow, I am impressed with your progress in pearl restoration knowledge. You are turning into an outright professional.

Zeide