How to clean natural Abalone pearls

[New Zealand Natural Pearl]

Hi everybody,

While we started to sort out our new harvest of pearls we thought it could be interesting for you to see a bit of the transformation process.
You might know that the nacre layers of the natural Abalone (also known as Paua or Haliotis Iris) are very present. In between each layer of nacre is whats known as conchiolin. During the process of pearl formation, the last layer is the one we are grading and marks of conchiolin are having a negative affect of the price.

Here a hint if you are holding an untreated pearl.

place your pearls in saltwater and leave them over night.
After the saltwater has softened the conchiolin you should be able to remove it by scraping and polishing it.

 

[dmj]

i like the weird pale color in the pearl

 

[Caitlin]

Hi!
I am so happy to hear from you all!

And to share such a tip. Thanks.

Please keep posting ! And, more pix! I love that little guy on the right.

So does your tip mean that the conchiolin is soft before the pearl is removed from the ocean? Interesting!

 

[pattye]

NZNP,

Very interesting about cleaning the pearl. What do you recommend as safe to scrape it with? And then what to use for polishing?

 

[Adeline Leigh]

OoOo, I'm going to try. Is it ok to use table-salted water or the real stuff from oceans?

 

[Alex]

what a beaut

imagine two as earrings........

 

[New Zealand Natural Pearl]

Hi Caitlin, Yes the conchiolin is softer leaving the ocean than it is ones it has been drying in the sun.

We are involved in new projects with a few new people on board (also from overseas to excuse a few spelling mistakes ), so we will keep posting our discoveries

To answer Pattye and Adelines questions, You can use normal salt as well for this process and scratch it off using a graver. Best for polishing is tripoly and roug as well as a goats hair brush.

The top yellowish/golden reflecting part of our pearl example is the rest stain of where the conchiolin was once sitting.

It takes a while each pearl but the result is quality lifting and therefore well worth the effort.

Greetings
Belinda

 

[Caitlin]

Just keep posting!!!!