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| Heavily Corroded Silver Religious Medallion. |
This medallion was dug years ago, but when I pulled some items out of a box for an illustration recently, it was among them. I decided it should be cleaned up.
I decided to start by using baking soda. Often all it takes to clean silver is rubbing the item with a paste made of baking soda and water, so I started on this item by doing that. That worked pretty well on part of the medallion, but the Mary figure remained heavily corroded. I then decided to wrap the medallion in a baking soda paste and wrap that in tin foil. That is a technique that has worked well for me in the past when cleaning some silver reales. I left the medallion in the tin foil and baking soda overnight just like I had done before with the reales.
When I opened the tin foil the next morning to see how it looked, some of the corrosion had been removed but there was still a lot left on Mary (See below.). It definitely needed more cleaning.
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| Religious Medallion After Being Removed From Baking Soda Paste and Tin Foil. |
Mary was still covered with a layer of red. (CORRECTION added 8/4. The figure is St. Clare, not Mary. I'll have more on that in the near future.)
I don't know what the red stone is.
I decided to soak the medallion in white vinegar (5% acid) over night. That helped a lot. You can see how that in the following photo.
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| Medallion After Baking Soda and Vinegar Treatment. |
There is still some hard encrustation on Mary. You can see it on her face and body if you look closely. I figure a little more soaking in vinegar will take care of that. I could go to Muriatic acid, but don't think I'll need to.
I've talked about using Muriatic acid for cleaning silver in the past. It works well. Use the following link for Bill P's instructions on using Muriatic acid to clean silver.
You'll also find Alberto's instructions for tumbling coins in the same post.
Below is an example that only needed some rubbing with baking soda paste.
That silver religious medallion is another that I removed from the box at the same time I took out some rings and the religious medallion shown above.
When I first took it out, the patina made the item look like copper even though I knew it was silver.
Here is how it looked when I took it out of the box. I showed that picture before.
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| Tarnished Silver Religious Find As Removed From Box Of Items. |
Just a little baking soda paste rubbed over the charm produced fairly satisfactory results in a short time.
Here is the same charm after rubbing the charm with a baking soda paste between my fingers for only a few minutes.
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| Same Medallions After A Little Rubbing With A Baking Soda Paste. |
You can use a Dremel tool with a buffing wheel and polishing compound, if you have one and want to do an even better job.
I should take out some more old finds for study and cleaning.
When you get those sanitary wipes at the store for cleaning the handles on your shopping cart, don't throw them away. When they dry out they work well for cleaning your glasses or wiping off other things.
Also, after using an acid, whether it is vinegar or Muriatic acid, baking soda can be used when you are done to neutralize the acid.
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Saturday I dug up a heavy duty handle but left something big in the hole. I couldn't get to the big item because of a number of roots. Sunday I took my ax up so I could remove the roots. After removing the roots, what I found in the hole was a nearly three foot long solid bar.
It looks like maybe the handle that I dug from the same hole goes with the bar. I don't see how they were connected, but here they are together.
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| Dug Iron Bar With Handle Dug From Same Hole. |
This looks like a shovel handle, but it is way to heavy for that. Any of you railroad guys recognize it?
There is still a lot to be removed from that metal detecting site.
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| Source: Nhc.noaa.gov. |
Well, there is one system developing off Africa. It could take a while before wge can figure out what it is going to do.
So far it has been a very quiet summer, with the beaches doing very little other than accumulating sand.
The tides are now small. The surf is around one to two feet, and it looks like won't be much more than two or three feet in the next several days.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net