[efrahjalt]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

Thank you, that is a great suggestion, and a subject often brought up (rather constantly actually) on these pages over the many years writing here.
As I am indeed someone who studies history, my opinion is always to leave as much patination as possible, and even items that are in essentially relic or excavated condition should remain as is as much as possible excepting minor repair to complete the overall composition. . In most cases the physical aspects of the components, metal etc. reflect important information pertaining to age however without scientific analysis, most of that is from comparison to other items in kind, or the context or provenance of the item being examined.

The only cleaning should be lightly removing grime, stabilizing any corrosion or rust. The weapons I have collected over many years have remained as is.
Only light rubbing with fine steel wool and WD40 in pitted areas on hilts revealed key regimental markings etc.

I am by no means a professional, as in a museum, where conservation is more detailed stabilizing and limited restoration is accomplished. These processes are far more complex to preserve the item as close to its intact condition as possible.

Items which are heavily (overcleaned) are in my opinion compromised as the patination is in my opinion, virtually history itself in a sense, and should be left intact as much as possible.

As I say, this has been often discussed over many years, and my position on this is pretty well known, as well as apparently shared by many others who write here. Great topic, and very grateful for your interest!!! Thank you.

I'd also be interested in a discussion about preservation cleaning and care. I have a fairly well defined set of rules that I follow for metal objects in my collection, and even though I feel quite comfortable with my techniques I'm sure I have plenty more to learn. Where my knowledge really falls off is in organics. It would be great if the discussion could include information on wood, leather, bone, horn, ivory etc. In fact I was thinking about posting a question specifically about wood which came to me while inspecting the dry state of the palm wood on my recent Moro budiak purchased I posted in another thread. Perhaps it would be worth it to split the discussion into sections to focus on these areas.