First of all what "liquid" did you use to sanitize them?

Is this something you have used before or something new?

Did you do anything different with the liquid, like leave them sitting in it for a long time?


As for the color, stickiness and everything else, those scales actually look more like vulcanite to me than celluloid. I'm no expert, and I've never heard of vulcanite scales before, but I've restored a lot of tobacco pipes, and they are just about the exact color of old stained vulcanite, which was used in pipe stems. Also, a lot of cleaning agents can produce a sticky surface on vulcanite, and old vulcanite has a funky sulfury smell.