Removing spots from Ostrich shell beads

Jewelry Discussion
#1

Over a year ago, I bought some “beads” that are rounded slices of
ostrich shell. As usual, I did not get around to using them right
away, and now several of them have some little black spots on them. I
tried tumble-polishing them for a few hours in my Cerambits and they
got shinier on the outer shell side, but it didn’t remove the spots.
Does anyone know how to get rid of the spots, or are they just
"natural"?

Thanks in advance!
Judy Bjorkman

#2

Hi Judy,

If you buy ostrich egg shell beads here in Botswana they very often
have black spots on them, so I think this is ‘natural’. I am
interested to hear that they survived time in a tumbler though as
they can be very brittle.

Regards,

Sarah
Ndoro Silver
Botswana
@Designconsultancy