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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;EWC3, post: 3207586, member: 93416&quot;]Maybe this is just a personal niggle, but IMHO it would probably be more accurate to say:</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;It is clear chemicals were used to remove the patina/clean <u>revealing</u> surface etching&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>(Unless of course the item is some kind of clever pressure cast - I have no comment on that)</p><p><br /></p><p>More generally:</p><p><br /></p><p>At a practical level - very pure silver pieces can become very fragile if buried in a saline environment - due to what certainly appears to be internal crystallisation.&nbsp; This can often be reversed by moderate heat - a bread oven - for a period of hours.&nbsp; Don&#039;t ask me how it works, I do not know.&nbsp; Others have told me this cannot be true, but they are wrong, as I did it, quite a lot.</p><p><br /></p><p>Regarding copper alloys.&nbsp; Crystallisation does not seem to me to cause fragility in copper alloy coins, so I never tried to anneal them.&nbsp; Those experienced in conservation work tell me - if removing bends from damaged copper alloy items – the copper alloy must first be heated to a very high (cherry red) temperature.</p><p><br /></p><p>I assume that is to anneal it?&nbsp; But what do I know?&nbsp; Only this - that is what practical people said they found worked.</p><p><br /></p><p>The enlightenment happened when people put aside theories to trust what they saw for themselves.&nbsp; Often enough I fear, due to modern education, we increasingly forgot that fact.</p><p><br /></p><p>Rob T[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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