I had gotten this necklace from a trading post in Colorado a number of years ago. It is made of spiny oyster, and I hate to say that I can’t recall what the purple is called (hints appreciated!). Anyway, at some point, it broke and was restrung at a local jewelry store.
There is apparently an art to stringing necklaces of this type, isn’t there? I thought that the jeweler should be able to do this, but when I got it back, it no longer hangs correctly and the beads split at the points you see at the bottom of the necklace when it is hanging with the catch in the correct place at the center of my neck.
What would you suggest as far as getting this fixed? I did not know when I took it to a jeweler that it would come back looking like this, I just thought any jeweler should be able to do it. Would I be better to send this to somewhere like Perry Null or a shop that handles native American necklaces? Or was this just a bad job done by that shop?
Have it restrung on “tiger tail” and make sure it’s strung tight enough that it doesn’t
gap. You’ll need to find a stringer that knows what they’re doing. Try Perry Null Trading.
ETA: Traditional fine jewelers, and jewelry repair shops will often take in work they don’t actually know how to do, or aren’t equipped to do themselves. Shop space is expensive and quite often the work is sent out to be done by subcontractors. In any case, most fine jewelers and jewelry repair shops aren’t trained or experienced to work in Native American style jewelry, and if you have a repair, it’s really important to find a specialist who knows and understands how Native American, and Native American style jewelry is made. As you’ve discovered, even something as simple as stringing isn’t actually so simple.
@mmrogers:. Thank you for the tips and terminology to ask for. I certainly did not know that this was a special kind of stringing; that jewelry shop has always done good work on repairs I have sent them before, but I guess they’re more used to working with restringing pearls than flat beads of this type.
It is a shame that I had to lose money on having it repaired, and I’ll have to send it out for repair again, but at least it is fixable! I had not been wearing it because it hung so weird.
