Key found metal detecting | ||
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Posted 6 years ago
Shybunny13
(1 item)
I have no clue what this key had unscripted on it. Or if it is a picture not words. I found it on downtown jonesboro where Gone With the Wind was filmed I did find it with a metal detector and it is a little broken and very tarnished
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It's called verdigris, and if you look on line there are many ways to remove it. A collector here has used "BrassO" with successful results.
Exciting that it could have been used during GWTW, wow, nearly 80 yrs ago
OK. First that's not verdigris. Verdigris (from the French "vert de Grece" or "the green of Greece") is a blue/green oxide of copper which forms on brass. Second, cleaning an antique with Brasso, or any other polish, ruins any collector value of the piece. Brass and bronze should be left with their original patina intact. (Verdigris can be safely removed with wax and a soft cloth.)
Now, the corrosion you have indicates that the key is made of "white metal" (with a bronze colored coating) - one of the many alloys of zinc which are used to make inexpensive castings and not suitable for keys because they wouldn't stand up to the stress of daily use in a lock. Your piece is most likely a gift shop souvenir of some place/attraction and may have had a plastic disc with a picture or inscription glued in the handle. In its current condition it is worthless.
If it had anything to do with GWTW it would have completely dissolved underground long ago.
Agree 100% w/UncleRon. Sorry Shybunny13, what you've got was never intended to be anything but an inexpensive decorative trinket-ish thing (tourist souvenir, x-mas tree ornament, etc. etc.) that's now showing the result of having been discarded on the ground somewhere for a few yrs before you found it.
Nice key I have found a lot of keys detecting and digging old bottles never really worried much about cleaning them they aint worth much anyway so I clean them they look better and will stop the corrosion process I put mine in a knock down frame someday I will post them some of them were found with 1860s-70 era stuff
Happy detecting
Bill