This is a small part of the silver I have recovered from salt water over the years including a Walking Liberty Half and a silver dollar (The only one ever for me!).
After cleaning the crusty layers of salt , sand and silver oxide from the coins not a lot of detail was left.
The silver dollar lost about a 1/4 of its mass and most of the detail of the engravings..
[attachment 178842 OldSilver11-06-10004Large.jpg]
[attachment 178843 OldSilver11-06-10007Large.jpg]
The jewelry suffers too. The pile has several silver chains, religious medals and quite a few heavy rings in varying degrees of damage.
[attachment 178844 OldSilver11-06-10002Large.jpg]
At the top left of the picture above are three rings that have severe damage with two of the bands largely gone and the wire ring nearly destroyed.
[attachment 178845 OldSilver11-06-10011Large.jpg]
There is lots of encrustation on most of the pieces, but a couple that weren't exposed very long are in good shape.
The gold toned chain on the bottom of the pile is an Italian .925 chain.
Note the two antique watch fobs, one with an airplane and an automobile circa 1930s and the other had a coin or medal attached, but it was lost.
Since 1982 I have recovered perhaps 20lbs of these artifacts mostly with PI machines in the salt water.
GL&HH Fellow Hunters,
CJ
After cleaning the crusty layers of salt , sand and silver oxide from the coins not a lot of detail was left.
The silver dollar lost about a 1/4 of its mass and most of the detail of the engravings..
[attachment 178842 OldSilver11-06-10004Large.jpg]
[attachment 178843 OldSilver11-06-10007Large.jpg]
The jewelry suffers too. The pile has several silver chains, religious medals and quite a few heavy rings in varying degrees of damage.
[attachment 178844 OldSilver11-06-10002Large.jpg]
At the top left of the picture above are three rings that have severe damage with two of the bands largely gone and the wire ring nearly destroyed.
[attachment 178845 OldSilver11-06-10011Large.jpg]
There is lots of encrustation on most of the pieces, but a couple that weren't exposed very long are in good shape.
The gold toned chain on the bottom of the pile is an Italian .925 chain.
Note the two antique watch fobs, one with an airplane and an automobile circa 1930s and the other had a coin or medal attached, but it was lost.
Since 1982 I have recovered perhaps 20lbs of these artifacts mostly with PI machines in the salt water.
GL&HH Fellow Hunters,
CJ