Reel mining

[Steve]

Buried under the kind of heavy patina we all cherish was a German silver reel, a Kopf I hadn't seen before. (Needs a crank screw.) Before and after shots:

There are a few pink dezinced areas, probably from the storage environment. Here are some cleaning suggestions for foodies: Yum! Slurp! Drool!

[john elder]

Purty! I find the pink tends to fade away after a while spent shelf fishing..

[Paul M]

Nice reveal!

[Midway Tommy D]

the kind of heavy patina we all cherish

Now that's one pretty broad assumption. With that said, my preference leans toward the right........Did I really just say that?

[Steve]

This one was a big surprise. I assumed it was brass, but after it sat in my Caesar salad for a few minutes, a couple of scratches looked silvery, not yellowy. So into the vinegar it went until the GS did, indeed, reveal itself. I hope that if/when the pink disappears, it's not because a new, thick patina has grown. I've never seen GS that dark before.

[Paul M]

I posted about a NPB BH during Jan 2016 and had a similar pink tone to the exposed brass surfaces of the spool. I just took a picture to see how it has re-patinated over the past year. The pink has darkened a shade towards brown without any help. The perception of pink varies significantly with lighting. You have nothing to worry about.

Before:

Halfway cleaned:

Immediately after Cleaning - pink brass on spool:

13 Months later- less pink on spool

[Brian F.]

I always end up with that pink color on spools after cleaning since a lot of my stuff is so far gone over into the green! But I never thought to check over time but tend to agree that it does mellow out after a while.

[Ray Hencken]

I have found that if the GS is left in the vinegar for too long the pink color appears. I have hand polished the pink parts with simichrome and the pink disappears.

[Steve]

Ray, I've had similar results. In this case, there were pink patches visible after initial attempts to polish off the patina. The reel spent some time in vinegar, then a long time in my favorite clock-cleaning solution, which removed a lot of the pink. Hand polishing removed some more, but the remaining dezincing seems to be pretty deep.