Featured Heavy chunky plastic bead necklace ??

Is it old?
Huge and heavy bead necklace, swirls apparent on some beads, no seam lines. Measures 20 inches long and weighs in at 7 ounces. 409 Q-tip test came back purple… But I read somewhere that 409 changed their formula and is not an accurate test for bakelite anymore? Regardless, I’m thinking they’re possibly acrylic? And of course, I’m wondering if they are “vintage“.
Thanks so much!

 

I'm seeing lines so I think plastic, acrylic is probably correct.
Looks like beads that were popular in the mid 80s.

 

hmmm... I don't think acrylic beads would come back with any color.

I don't know if these are bakelite, but it is super common for bakelite/catalin/phenol resin beads in this color range to come back with a non-traditional(not yellow)-bakelite swab result.

 

@Jivvy -
Wouldn't the screw have been carved bakelite, rather than the inserted metal?

 

Stylistically with beads this big and chunky, guessing 80s too, and some kind of base plastic, but let's be sure.

One other thing I might be also seeing that might confirm acrylic, from photo #2 where the string goes through the bead. A bit hard to see as the beads are back to back, is there any sort of "whiteness" or lighter color around where the hole was drilled, sort of disruption of the plastic from being drilled? That usually means acrylic or a cheaper plastic, but I can't really see the drilled hole well from the photo, so maybe Bluumz could take a look.

 

I totally don't know the rules on that. Just checked one necklace of mine and it had a drilled receiving end, carved plastic screw, but the screw appears to have been inserted. And I know this piece is bakelite.

I'm still stuck on an acrylic plastic giving any test result other than "no color"...

 

Yep, definite whiteness around the drill holes:

 

hmmm...

 

I was just about to do a big ol' "409 vs red acrylic plastic " series of tests.

I have no 409.

 

It is a bit cleaner looking than I thought seeing this new photo, hmmm. Sometimes you see sort of a sloppiness to the drill hole and not seeing that. Don't want to give bad info. My guess is not, but please continue to research.

 

Yes and it was the same color as the necklace, correct?
Not brass as shown by bluumz.

 

It's a tough call on that. It's a translucent bakelite piece and the screw looks like a different color, but that could be because it's so little and thin and helical that it just reflects light differently than the large faceted beads.

Definitely not metal.

 

One thing that does sometimes test red bakelite is the damp q-tip and baking soda. Dip the cotton swab in baking soda (the box absorbing odors in the fridge ought to work fine) and rub one of those white areas hard. Hold it to your nose while you're doing it. If you smell formaledhyde, bingo. If it comes up red instead of yellow or brown, they're modern plastic. If you get nothing, oh well.

 

Why would plastic turn baking soda qtip red?

 

I was wondering the same thing. And then wondering why bakelite reacts.

After reading a goodly bit of stuff that is over my head, my take is that the baking soda test is reliant on the molecular degradation of bakelite - what's being tested is the chemical composition of the degradation.

And, because all plastics degrade (some more quickly than others), even non-bakelite plastics may also have a reaction with the baking soda.

I did a boatload of testing tonight. Vintage red vulcanite definitely turned the qtip red. Nothing (that I have) from the 1980s forward had any reaction (not enough degradation?).

In the picture below, the green bead showed no reaction and the red bead turned the qtip red. I do not know what plastic these are - I've always felt they were too lightweight for bakelite.

After the reading and the testing my take is this: I dunno what @bluumz piece is.