is it possible....you decide (pic hvy)

[bravowhiskey]

Here is a ring I found last weekend at my wifes' old family place. By old family place, I mean great grandparents back to 1860's. They all are long lived. Her Grannie Long was born in 1895 and lived to the ripe old age of 103.

This is what it looked like when pulled out from under 8" of dirt.

I was trying to clean this with silver polish at a suggestion from Ray in Ca. It didn't do a thing. I will give him much credit for suggesting that there was nothing lost by trying to clean this mess. I thought I could discern the slightest look of some kind of color with a jewelers' magnifying glass. So I got out the heavy equipment. (dremel tool and associated equipment my DIL had)

WTH? I kept at it, looked like something was indeed transpiring...

The more work, the better it was looking...by this time I am shaking my head...

I wrapped the outside with tape so I could hold it and work the inside...

leaned up against a block of jewelers rouge...



Still polishing...

work in progress...

My lovely wifes' new occupation as a hand model. Ring is on index finger.

Next thing is trip to jewelers' for verification. No markings of any kind on ring. This would be a first for me. (If it is AU) I thought it rang up as silver on the SE, but may have confused it with another object I dug that day.
Thanks for bearing with me, but I am pumped.

BW

 

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[spartacus53]

It looks like a lovely au ring to me. I loved the way that cleaned up too

 

[thrillathahunt]

Way to go Brent! That looks purdy!

 

[dank]

would gold tarnish like that? i only found 3 pieces of gold (last week) and all of them were shiney and just dirty when removed from the ground, but then again, all my gold pieces were recently droped (assuming so caz they were all under 2.5 inches).
maby brass?

 

[Mr Tuff]

cool ring hope it is real!!!!!!!!!MR TUFF

 

[beetle662]

Very nice!!! Best part of this is that I have a ring sitting on my desk that I found this past fall in the exact same shape. I went out to the garage and got my dremel and lo and behold, i discovered gold as well. I don't have jewelers rouge but intend on visiting a jeweler friend tomorrow to find out more about this.

Sure am glad I decided to hold on to this!!!

 

[ashleen]

Nice going

did it seem to be coated, or fire damaged?

 

[Deepdiger60]

That sure looks like fire blackened gold to me i have seen it before on a ring Nice find Good Hunting

 

[ModernMiner]

Unbelievable!!! You did a fantastic clean up job on that ring. I would have never guessed there was silver under there.
Beauty!
Congrats,
MM

 

[CMDiamonddawg]

Hey bravowhisky, Nice family keepsake , apprec. u sharing of your time and effort to restore the ring. Dremel tools are great . Enjoy and Granny would be proud. 8)

 

[silverfreak]

That is awesome the way that ring cleaned up. Great pics

 

[RON (PA)]

Looks like gold to me, too. It is good that it is staying in the family...Great job with the cleaning.

 

[Caryl]

Nice find. But I'm with the "not gold" camp.

 

[Iron Patch]

Looks like brass. Polished brass that is. You could do the same thing with pretty much anything you dig made of brass.

 

[wingmaster]

Congrats even if its not gold its a nice old ring find, but looks like gold to me.

 

[mainer]

I was kinda thinking brass myself. But who knows. Great find and good job bringing it back to life.

 

[Digger]

Yup brass. Sorry!

I've done the same with most of my brass rings and a dremel tool. Polished brass looks a lot like gold.

 

[Kanyontreasures]

that is amazing awesome find

 

[Michaelangelo]

Never would have guessed it would clean up so nice. Great work!! Keep us posted as to whether it's gold or not.
And your wife does have lovely hands!!

 

[DrJoePrime]

You sure did a beautiful job cleaning that ring and it looks so GOOD!

But ... if it were gold you wouldn't need to work so hard to polish it up. Look at some of the 1000 year old gold coins and objects, especially the UK and it just needs a rinse in water.

A few months ago I found a 14K (marked) ring which was in an ocean environment buried in wet sand for possibly 50 years. Herre's a link from the "Cleaning" site: http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,277459.0.html

How I finally cleaned it is a 5 minute soak in HCL (hydrochloric acid for swimming pool use) and then a polish with baking soda .. no freckles.

HH Joe