25C - 1941 - Extreme Environmental Damage

Hi all,
I few weeks ago I scooped up this 1941 Silver Quarter at the beach. I put it aside to see if I could get it to look like its original appearance. I have tried Vinegar, Acetone and detergent but nothing could remove the crud off of the surface.
I give up.. I just wanted to know from anyone.. What could of affected this Quarter in such a way. Is Silver maybe affected by fire?

 

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@paddyman98

Was it black or nearly black when you first found it?

Chris

 

Here is another picture with flash -

Ugly right?

 

Black! The vinegar cleaned it up a bit. The acetone has done nothing at all even after 2 days.

 

I vaguely remember a Discovery Channel story about a treasure ship that sank in the Indian Ocean centuries ago and all the silver coins turned black because of their close proximity to the iron cannons from the ship. Some of the coins fused together in huge chunks, but other loose coins turned black just being near the cannons.

Perhaps @desertgem can shed some light on this.

Chris

 

Have you tried a hot peroxide bath? Just out of the medicine cabinet kind. I just nuke a small quantity (and no it didnt blow up in the microwave to my surprise - i kinda thought it might though) of peroxide and put the coin in there. It'll bubble and fizz and stop when the peroxide cools down leaving some of the scale in the bath usually. Mild toothbrush action. Rinse. Repeat.. That scale looks pretty tough so it may not work. Anyway, i use peroxide to get some of the heavier junk deposits off of detector finds in our heavy clay soils. (But i dont know how it will work on silver because I HAVENT FOUND ANY!!!).. Yeah, that was frustration... Don't tell anybody i learned about the peroxide thing on youtube

 

Electrolysis reaction, like from chemistry class ?

 

Yeah! But i couldn't tell ya about the ions and the everthing elses..... all that stuff i forgot........ years ago.....

 

Barnacles?

 

That’s exactly what I was thinking Tuck! @cpm9ball might have it though. Salt water combined with a heavily mineralized beach environment would equal thick black tarnish. Sorry I mean a finely toned coin. Lol

Reed.

 

I'd stick it in a rock tumbler. I found a barber quarter at an old defunct railroad station that looked worse than yours. I thought it was a state quarter because it was so dirty and beat up from gravel and possibly oil or whatever they were pouring over the gravel. It came out of the tumbler nice and shiny like silver should and that's when I realized what it was. But the gravel had damaged it quite a bit nonetheless.