Help! Cleaning "Blue Topaz?"????

[Maxine]

I have a necklace/earring set of blue topaz stones bezel set in silver. Silver was very tarnished...I asked jeweler if OK to use silver cleaner, and he said OK. Put some cleaner on silver...of course some got on stone....It looked hazy inside...under neath on stone, so I gently brushed w/jewl cleaning brush....and "blue " like PEELED of right down the middle! Did I harm th blue topaz, or was it NOT blue topaz? How should I clean earrings (now that necklace is damaged.......)..The silver is really black!

 

[valeria101]

Ouch! Blue topaz does not peel... it''s just blue all over, inside and out. That must be colored by some coating - I can''t begin to imagine what eactly that was - there are dozens of brands of syntetics and simulants out there. Even blue topaz can be coated since there are several treatments that yield types of "blue topaz" sold under different commercial names.

As long as the silver cleaner is deemed safe to handle, it shouldn''t be capable to damage blue toaz which is inert to every household chemical I can think of.

Sorry to hear such thing.

Cleaning inside bezels is not going to work easy with brute force and no chemical aid. You can probably tell by looking at the peeled area with a loupe if there is some film adhering to the stone. Not that I have any idea how to clean the piece ! Hope someone can help...

 

[chantal990]

Could this be the result of some sort of diffusionm type coating as is used for green and mystic topaz?

 

[Maxine]

I have no idea....good idea to look at it through loup!!!!

 

[fuffi]

Ouch! Colorless topaz is sometimes surface coated-- similar to the nonreflective coating on eyeglasses. This layer is microscopic and very vulnerable to aggressive cleaning. Sounds like your situation. Don''t know if there is much you can do to correct it though.

 

[Maxine]

Don''t think the coating all came back....I only cleaned one...all have like crack marks on back....almost like ther is something on ther....But they are SO dirty, also...didn''t clean aggressively....Could jeweler get off tarnish w/out using chemicals?

 

[fuffi]

It is ''supposedly'' ok to put coated topaz in an ultrasonic cleaner if you have one. This should clean your silver well, but I would check with your jeweler to see what he recommends given the special circumstances. Is your jeweler a gemologist who can examine the topaz for you?