THE PILL TAKES SHINE OFF

Press, 8 January 1980, Page 1

THE PILL TAKES SHINE OFF

Christchurch jewellers say women on oral contraceptives and people on strong medication should keep buying high carat gold rings in spite of record gold price increases.

Jewellers who have been in the trade for 20 or more years say “experience” has taught them that “the pill” tarnishes engagement and wedding rings in the lower carat ranges.

Mr T. Taylor, of Facette Jewellers, says the contraceptive pill, heart pills, and slimming pills can corrode a ring in two years in the worst cases. “I have worked the

same alloys for years, and bad blacking began only after the contraceptive pill came on the market,” he said. In cases of bad “black dust,” Mr Taylor said he had found wearers to be using the oral contraceptive in all but one or two cases, where high body acid levels seemed to be the cause. “You have to know for the sake of the business whether the blacking is

caused by a faulty alloy or not,” Mr Taylor said. “When a woman comes

back the third time you get desperate enough to ask.” A jeweller’s assistant who did not want to be named said she had

learned in 15 years that the pill was a tarnishing agent as strong as lanolin hand lotions caustic soaps, and excessively acid and salty body systems.

Nine-carat gold rings were the most badly affected, she said.

Mr R. Donnell, of Donnell Jewellers, said he had noticed that many men returning blackened ninecarat gold rings wore medic-alert chains.

“It could be they are on some form of medication that is causing the blackening,” he said. “It does not seem odd at all that strong medica-

tion causes discoloration of rings, but I would not like to name the medicines.”

Mr Donnell said he was not sure about the pill, but believed that egg and sulphur shampoos could cause black dust. Rubber workers’ rings tarnished badly. Twenty-four carat gold, or pure gold, is not affected by black dust. However, as copper and silver alloy contents increase, so

do" corrosion risks. Zinc in the soldering canal so be corroded until the ring disintegrates.

One solution is to coat the ring with platinum. The alternatives are to change the contraceptive or medication, or continually polish the ring and wash the black mark off. Pharmacists and doctors are not prepared to say what common factors might be between medicines, the pill, and other

agents, or even if these are responsible. They say more research needs to be done.

Some jewellers and chemists remember overseas medical studies that found a link between the oral centraceptive and bad blacking of lower carat rings. Mr Taylor says the British Jewellers’ Association investigated the phenomenon when blackening began in Britain just after ’ the introduction of the pill. The results showed a link.

One jeweller said that sulfa drugs had a corrosive effect on low carat rings.