Pealing pearls

[Billgem]

I have (I think) a strand of 9mm natural pearls. The pearls are pealing. I am not sure why, but it could be from perfume or other cosmetics. I have attached a picture showing the damage. Each pearl is showing some damage. I have heard that it may be possible to repair the pearls, as they are a nice color and size. My question, does anyone know about this process and/or of someone who can do this?
Bill

[Caitlin]

Hi
Do you mean having someone actually peal the pearls?

It looks like they may have been stored in a very dry place with no humidity, such as a safety deposit box, for a long time. Perfume would have discolored them more.

I have some naturals that someone recommended a salt slurry for cleaning. Just enough distilled water so there are still lots of wet salt cystals. I slooshed them around in that for a minute, them rinsed them in more distilled water, then let them sit in the bathroom (where it is humid) and lt them rehydrate.

I would skip the salt sluurry unless they are dirty, but I think you could safely rinse them in distilled water and let them hydrate in the bathroom where it is humid before you do anything else. If they had been worn they would probably be in better shape than that because human skin oils are actually good for them.

Here is a picture of mine prewash.

[Caitlin]

And here they are after washing and rehydrating. I also wear them often and now they look even better. Wearing them actually seems to keep them smoother than storing them.

[Billgem]

Caitlin,
I talked with Norman Lange, who's family has dealt in natural pearls, and he said that there was some reports of methods of pealing the pearls to remove the outer layers of nacre and restore the beauty of the pearl. I was just hoping that someone may have knowledge of this.
Thanks for your suggestions.
Bill

[Caitlin]

I was lucky enougth to have a granddad who owned a pearling dhow that sailed the Persain Gulf around Bahrain. The pearls I showed you were from there. While i did hear of an famous pearl pealer in Bahrain, he was old when I was a kid in the 1950's.

I know of no one living who can be called an expert in the art of pearl pealing, which even among the Bahraini pearlman of a bygone age, was a very rare art. Maybe someone else here has heard of such a person, but no one living has yet been mentioned here, yet.

I googled the subject casually and found nothing, not even historical references.

I did a search on this site and found some old Aramco magazine articles about the persian gulf pearlmen. I think we have 2 or 3 of these articles on the site. One mentions the old master of Bahrain.

The reason I showed you my natural Bahraini pearls was to show you the kind of natural pealing that can take place as they are worn. The different layers can hardly be seen after some wear to them. They need magnification to be seen.

Your picture was not all that good so I could not see how thick the layers of cracking are. If they are thick chunks, .5cc and up, the pealed pearl will be considerably smaller in diameter when done.

I wish you luck in your hunt. I hope someone here or elsewhere knows of a pearl pealer for you. I also hope you will allow the pearls to rehydrate slowly in a humid place. Thrn, if you can't find a pealer, you will still see some improvement in the skins of your pearls, maybe even enough improvement so you won't need a pealer.

[Slraep]

Hi Billgem,

I have used a dremel tool with different grades of sanding discs and attachments(coarse to ultra fine)in order to expose the underlying layers of nacre on freshwater, South Sea and Tahitian pearls. It takes a lot of practice on worthless pearls before trying this method on costly ones. I have never done it on natural pearls and would try rehydrating the pearls by constant wear instead of peeling.

You need a very steady hand in order to dremel-sand layers off a pearl. After the final sanding with the ultra fine attachment, I also polish with a type of powder made from diamond dust. Anyway, I do not recommend doing any of this, but if you are curious, you could try it on some inexpensive freshwater pearls just for fun. The pearl experts of old use to peel pearls with a small knife, flecking off the upper nacre layers to reveal the ones below. This also takes a lot of practice.

Slraep

[Billgem]

My thanks to Slraep and Caitlin for their suggestions. I will suggest to my customer to try the re hydration of these pearls. Have either of you heard of tumbling the pearls with bamboo chips? This is all new to me, but was suggested by a pearl dealer as a way to polish off the pealing outer layers.
Bill

[Caitlin]

Hi Bill
Tumbling with bamboo or cork or other such thiings is for polishing pearls with an already smooth skin. I am not sure how it would work with these.

I agree with Slraep that wearing them will help them resuscitate. I didn't suggest it because I think it will help the really loose peices peal off and you may notice it if too big a flake comes loose. But as I said, I think the odds are that the revealing of different layers as the loose stuff comes off will hardly be noticible because the layers are very thin and the pearls is solid nacre.

These pearls have lost a lot of value as is, and I personally would not hesitate to just wear them (next to the skin) everyday and let them sit in a humid place overnight. Please tell your customer no more storing by the radiator or in safe boxes for long periods.

A good rule of thumb is that real, natural pearls are a lot like wood in the way they respond to the atmosphere and humidity.

[Billgem]

Thanks to all who responded. After 42 years in the jewelry business and I am still learning.
Bill

[Bodecia]

Hi All,

As to keeping pearls in the best conditions possible in our homes - what about air-conditioning. I do realise heating would be bad for pearls but how bad is a cooling air-conditioner on pearls. In summer or winter many of us use some form of cooling/heating so I am wondering what is the best way to keep pearls. Naturally we want to keep our best in our jewellery boxes but if that is in a room which is cooled or heated for that matter, are they safe?

Caitlin, I used you salt sludge you suggested to clean some old vintage pearls I had and they came up beautifully. Also to clean 20 odd small Mikimoto pearls I had and they look a lot better too. As the Miki's were dirty inside the drill hole as well I also used a piece of silk thread, back and forth, and that really clean the drill holes out. I had tried a mild detergent on both before but that had not worked very well. The salt did the trick though. Didn't take a before and after photo unfortunately.

Bo

[Valeria101]

Wow! I am surprised to see a strand of size-matched natural pearls ! And large ones to boot!

At this point it sounds a bit silly to ask after all the debate on how to take care of them... but could they possibly be nucleated cultured pearls, not all-nacre naturals as the discussion so far seems to imply? Obviously, either type could be pealing, but the nature of the beast should make some difference on what could be done about it if anything. Again, apologies if the question is unwarranted: non-graduated, size and shape-matched natural strands are such an unusual encounter to me that the encounter here begs the question.

[Caitlin]

Good point Valeria, and one I should learn. I still believe too easily. I have to be more sceptical. A necklace of natural, 9mm, round, matched for color, and size, so perfectly, it would be what is called "an important" necklace, right?

I inherited a typical graduated strand of natural Bahraini pearls going from 7mm to 2mm from my grandmother. It is far easier to do a graduated necklace when you have natural pearls.

I also have a picture of my grandmother from after WWII wearing size matched natural pearls, but they are more like 6mm. One can easily see that some are off round and they are not perfectly matched for color. I am including the part of the photo below for your pearl analysis. And this necklace is natural. I just can't see my g-mo wearing anything else but the best strand of naturals my grandfather obtained from his pearl diving business, for a formal portrait. (to get more background on this story search here.)

[Caitlin]

Hi Bo,
I'm glad your experience with putting akoyas in a salt slurry came out well. I have no experience with doing it with those. I would hope the salt won't crack pearls like the big pearls above further, if they are akoyas. If they are natural, it would probably be ok. But salt is drying so don't leave any trace of it on the pearls. Rinse several times in untreated water or distilled water is ok. Avoid chlorine.

I think air conditioning is quite drying. Swamp boxes are great for pearls. A couple of years a go I got some lackluster pearls in my one of two ventures into direct deals with Chinese merchants. I had lots of strands tied into bunches and so I hung the bunches on hooks on a wall the swamp box current reaches. By the time the monsoon season was over, the pearls were all glowing with nice highlights of color.

I think advice to store cfwp pearls in a humid environment such as the bathrooom makes sense. Let someone else tell you about how it would work for bead nucleated pearls. I dare say cheaply cultured and over processed akoyas would dissolve in humidity and crack in dry. (But none of us here at this forum has cheaply cultured akoyas so I am not talking about your akoyas jest those pesky ones being pandered by untrained purveyers)

[Bodecia]

I'm glad your experience with putting akoyas in a salt slurry came out well. I have no experience with doing it with those. I would hope the salt won't crack pearls like the big pearls above further, if they are akoyas. If they are natural, it would probably be ok. But salt is drying so don't leave any trace of it on the pearls. Rinse several times in untreated water or distilled water is ok. Avoid chlorine.

Hi Caitlin,

Thanks for the further information on caring for the pearls. I did rinse throughly but think I will rinse again and again just in case. I only have rain water and consider that very much like distilled water so think they should be okay. Chlorine doesn't get into my house.

Can you tell me what a "swamp box" is. I am thinking an old aquarium with a heater in it might do for the extra moisture required but would love to hear about the swamp box.

Do you happen to have a photo or photos of your Natural pearls that you could post. I would love to see them as I am sure many would. For reference they would be great. On my regular surfing I often see pearls which just don't look right for average akoya's and have sometimes wondered if I am actually looking at natural pearls. That is strands or bracelets, old ones, that have various colours radomly stuck in the strand and pearls that are often out of shape and just look wrong for most akoya strands, even old ones. I probably still have the photos of them somewhere as I hoard photos as well as pearls

Thanks again, Bo

[Bodecia]

Actually sometimes strands I have seen look a lot like the ones in the photo of your washing naturals. But I have never felt confident enough to bid when I am really not sure so have just left them and might have missed out on a real bargain in the process.

Will attach a photo of one bracelet I thought looked a little strange and interesting. Just found it, I have so many photos stored that sometimes they are hard to find.

It shows the different colours but is a little too small to see shapes clearly or the pearls for that matter. Think I still have a better photo of it but that one doesn't show the colours correctly. Will go look for it.

Bo