The mystery pearls

amethystblack061

New Member
Joined
Nov 10, 2012
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2
Hello,
As you can probably tell, I am very new to this site. I joined because I had a conundrum on my hands. About 6 years ago we were cleaning out my grandmothers house when we moved her mattress and found several jewelry bags stashed under her bed. Inside one of those bags were these three necklaces. We noticed they were 'sticky' feeling and kept trying to pawn them off on one another, finally my sisters threw them at me and told me to get rid of them. I threw them in a plastic bag and forgot about them. Several moves later and an odd string of events I stumbled on the little black jewelry bag inside of a plastic bag with a lot of junk. Just a few hours earlier my sister and I had been talking when she mentioned those three necklaces and how stupid we were for not realizing that they were real. We assumed we'd sent them off to Texas with my eldest sister. But cleaning up my room and deciding to go through and get rid of a few things I re-discovered the bag, and wondered why on earth it was so heavy? I shrugged it off and opened the bag only to find the pearls we'd just been talking about. I found they were just as 'sticky' as before, though it wasn't as strange as I remembered. Each strand had weight behind them, but I've never seen such a color before. I brought them out to show my mother and she realized that two were children's, hers and her sisters given to them when they were little, and the other a favorite of her mothers. They were all covered in nicotine (my grandmother was a heavy smoker) which is what made them so 'sticky', with just a little cleaning (my mother was afraid to do too much as she wasn't sure how delicate they were or how to) they started to feel and look a little better.

Here are the best pictures I could take for the time being, I can try to take a few more later if I need to. But finding these couldn't be at a better time. I am hoping they might have a little value to them as my computer died and I need it for school (I am using my mothers computer at the moment). Any help in identifying them would be greatly appreciated. One of the clasps of the larger child size necklace has 'Japan' written on it. The largest necklace has no clasp and was meant to be worn as a loop necklace. The poor things are in rather rough shape.



3 sets open.jpglarge.jpg
clasp sm2.jpgjapan clasp sm1.jpg
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Hmmm, I am no expert, however, the semi-transparent appearance of the beads next to the rectangular clasp makes me believe they may not be real pearls, but shell or imitation pearls that have lost their coating through the years.

Hopefully, the experts will come along soon to give their opinions.

DK :)
 
The one in the middle looks like 3 necklaces artificially joined together. Restringing could turn them into 5 necklaces! Can we have some more closeups of each necklace? They are probably all akoya necklaces, but I want to see more of the pearls, close up. A wash in mild detergent like a clear shampoo or Dr. Bronners unscented castile soap may clean them up a little more.
 
Sorry it took a bit to get back to you guys, school and work really bogged me down.

I got the chance to clean them and to my unfortunate surprise each strand turned out to be shells >< someone must've swapped out these for the real ones at some point (because we know my grandmother had several real strands), oh well. Maybe if I can track down the real ones I'll bring them here for help identifying them.

Thank you guys so much though :)
 
Good luck, with school and finding the real pearls! Thanks also for telling the story, we love stories no matter the ending.
 
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