Vintage Bakelite Jewelry

Quite a number of years ago, at an antique show where I was a dealer, I caught a young couple armed with a disposable cigarette lighter that was fired up and heating the sharp pointed tip of an antique hat pin out of my inventory. The man had the lighter and the hat pin and the woman was standing next to him holding up a not-inexpensive 1920's celluloid and rhinestone flapper bracelet, encouraging him to poke the hot pin into the celluloid - on the outside, no less. Not only were they risking a piece of celluloid exploding into flames in their hands, they had already damaged one piece of merchandise that did not belong to them and were about to destroy another.

So, that should pretty much say explain the etiquette of testing. First and foremost - do not ever under any circumstances do a hot pin test on any item for any reason. Never. Ever. Ever. Let me say that again: DO NOT DO A HOT PIN TEST! Yes, I'm screaming!

Further, do not ever do any test without the approval of the owner of the merchandise. It's rude and inappropriate under any and all circumstances!

And, perhaps even more importantly, make yourself aware of the price of the item you are about to test before you consider doing one because in the event that you have made a bad choice of merchandise to test and end up doing damage to that merchandise, be prepared to pay for it without asking for a discount or trying to pretend that the damage was anyone's fault except yours.I've been the unfortunate victim of many "stealth" testing failures by over-zealous and poorly informed people over the years. Please do not do "stealth" testing. Again: it is inappropriate, unprofessional and just downright rude. After all, the merchdise doesn't belong to you. What are you thinking?

Any method "worth it's salt" does not damage real Bakelite but if you have made a mistake in your visual evaluation you may do serious damage to the item. To anyone who is experienced at Bakelite testing and identification, it may be hard to remember how difficult it can be for someone who is really "new" to Bakelite and possibly even new to collecting in general. After years and years of being an antique show vendor, I've seen an awful lot of crazy stuff.

So, now, let's try to understand about what you are seeing when you test a material to see if it's Bakelite.

First, it should be mentioned that it's always a good idea to take a damp cloth and wipe off the area you are planning to test to remove any dirt. Then, when you proceed to the testing, you should understand that what you are getting with an appropriate test is the removal of patina. The patina is yellowish in color and that is how you know you have Bakelite - your testing medium removes some of the patina. The patina is yellow. Viola!

The "usual methods" are performed with products that people are very accustomed to trusting are Simichrome, Novus Plastic Polish #2 (not #1 or #3 - they do not work for testing purpose), Maas and other metal polishes, and some household chemicals that I will not mention any more because their formulas are no longer appropriate for testing.

That said, let us now explore some alternate methods of testing. It is always a good idea to test a place twice with clean q-tip and fresh testing product to be sure you have not just gotten excess dirt. Also, it's good to note here that some of the fakelite jewelry coming in from SE Asia has been treated with some chemicals to make show a false positive result that will eventually be removed with repeated testing and will not return as patina on authentic Bakelite will.

Here are a few things that you can use that you may never have considered. Where I live it's not possible to purchase Simichrome or Novus in any local stores that I'm aware of. However, I can buy Wright's Silver Cream and numerous other gentle metal polishes in various variety stores, discount houses, drug stores and even the grocery store. Wrights is a favorite of mine because it's very, very gentle. Do not purchase the Wright's Polish in a bottle - it's too dark a color. Get the Cream in a jar.

There are a few other things that you can use but I would prefer not to list them here out of fear that someone might see them and say "WOW - I didn't know you could use ___________ (fill in the blank) to test for Bakelite" and never actually read the caveats that need to be attached to these other testing methods.

Because I've got a lot of experience with vintage plastics I felt that it was safe for me to test the other products on known Bakelite pieces. The point is that I used gentle touches and products that are mildly abrasive and they returned the same results for me that I got with the use of the know, accepted methods.

Another point is that it seems to me that there is way too much emphasis placed on "The Smell Test" and "The Hot Water" test. People who have never smelled real Bakelite might smell something "chemical" and think that they have a "BINGO!", rush out to sell to someone else who is equally new at the identification of Bakelite something that is actually something else made of chemicals that is shiny and plastic-like. The smell test is only as good as the education of the nose that is performing it and I personally do not recommend that anyone with out extensive knowledge and experience with Bakelite depend solely on that method of testing.

Sadly, I went out of town for the afternoon and returned to a notice from eBay that I'd been locked out of my account "kitschupkisses" because there had supposedly been a security breach.

Well, that's all very well and good but after three hours of being repeatedly told that all I had to do was go in and change my password with a new, "emergency" password by their representatives and after being repeatedly disconnected by them and placed back into a 5-30 minute cue waiting on yet another clueless drone who told me the same thing - here's a single-use password. You have to use it at least TWICE to change your password. What do you mean it won't work? Oh single-use password means SINGLE use? I did not know. It was a typical eBay Live Non-Help situation. They were in the middle of using an untested, non-working system. So what else is new?

What can I say? I gave up for a few weeks, decided I should try again, finally found someone who was able to get me back in with a minimum of problem and immediately closed my store and had eBay shut down that PowerSeller ID.