Pearloid

Electric guitar with mother-of-pearl replacement pickguard

Perloid is a synthetic plastic made from cellulose nitrate with fillers such as fish silver (mother-of-pearl essence), whose patent holder was the Deutsche Celluloid-Fabrik AG in Leipzig (later in Eilenburg ). The production location was the Eilenburg branch , which had been the headquarters since 1915. Perloid is used as a mother-of-pearl substitute and is used for inlays in musical instruments, keys or picks as well as for buttons and for toiletries and hair accessories and other applications.

Another, similar plastic was then a little later under the name Pearloid by the manufacturer Jos. H. Meyer Bros. in Brooklyn (New York City) in the USA.

Today, mother-of-pearl substitutes are not only made from "pearloid" or "pearloid", the mother-of-pearl effect can also be created with other plastics such as cellulose acetate , acrylic glass and PVC as well as with polyesters . However, these products are also called perloid or pearloid . Roulette tokens and chips are partly also made from mother-of-pearl substitutes.

literature

• Georg Schwedt: Experiments relating to everyday plastics. Wiley, 2013, ISBN 978-3-527-33503-9 , p. 146 f.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kurt Thinius : Analytical Chemistry of Plastics. Springer, 1952, p. 4.
2. ^ Plastics . Volume 18, Lehmanns, 1928, p. 113.
3. ↑ Pearloid material. Rothko and Frost, accessed March 24, 2020 . 
4. ^ Les Paul Standard 2019. (PDF) Gibson Guitar Corporation , accessed March 24, 2020 .