Chains of old silver coins - Advice Please

[alfnail]

I’m attempting to clear stuff which has been sat in the attic for ages and came across a couple of old chains made from ‘silver’ coins, the first of which is pictured. It is made up of 1884 coins (10x 3d’s and 1 shilling). One or two are in ok condition e.g. the shilling, but as can be seen all have been soldered to make the chain. Does anyone have experience of such things, and whether better to try to remove solder (which I have never attempted) or should I just list on ebay ‘as is’, accept the outcome and save myself the effort? Silver is not my forte so I have no real clue as to value.

If anyone does happen to be interested in purchasing please feel free to PM me.

The other chain is made up of 21 x 4d’s (groats), William IIII and Victoria, an 1843 1½d, an 1817 Sixpence and a Queen Anne Shilling, most of which IMO are in poor condition apart from the 1843 1½d.

Any thoughts welcome, thanks……….even if it’s chuck them away or sell for scrap!  

[Ukstu]

List as is. People buy these items as jewellery still.  It's not worth the hassle of removing them as they will still have mounting marks. Weigh them also and see what you'd get for scrap silver. Listing the weight on eBay will aid the sale also if someone just wants them for scrap value. 

Edited February 4, 2018 by Ukstu

[Paddy]

I agree completely with Ukstu - there is no way you could break it down well enough to salvage the coins for numismatic interest, and these things do sell reasonably well as jewelry.

 

[DaveG38]

Whilst I agree with the principle of simply selling them on, I am tempted to ask whether anybody has a decent method of chemically removing solder, obviously without damaging the coins. It must be possible as the restoration guy in the US clearly manges to do so (though maybe mechanically). I'm a chemist by education, but I'm struggling to see a method of doing so. Any ideas?  

[Sword]

20 minutes ago, DaveG38 said:

Whilst I agree with the principle of simply selling them on, I am tempted to ask whether anybody has a decent method of chemically removing solder, obviously without damaging the coins. It must be possible as the restoration guy in the US clearly manges to do so (though maybe mechanically). I'm a chemist by education, but I'm struggling to see a method of doing so. Any ideas?  

Since the melting point of silver is considerably higher than solder, I guess the obvious thing to do is to use high temperature to melt the solder and then remove the molten solder. 

Had a very quick look on the web and found two methods. One involve soaking up the molten solder using a desoldering wick. A desoldering wick is weaved from copper fibre and can soak up the molten solder by capillary action. The other way is to use a solder sucking device. 

 

[Paddy]

I think this would work well if they used genuine solder (as we are familiar with in Electronic) as the joining material. My experience is they more often use a Silver alloy to braze the pieces together. This is much stronger, but also has a melting point close to that of silver, and so is much more difficult to remove. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazing

 

[alfnail]

I am pretty sure these would have been made shortly after 1884 as they were worn by my wife's grandmother, born that year.... maybe a clue as to type of soldering for those who know more than me! 

[alfnail]

P.S. Thanks for all the comments 

[Sword]

30 minutes ago, Paddy said:

I think this would work well if they used genuine solder (as we are familiar with in Electronic) as the joining material. My experience is they more often use a Silver alloy to braze the pieces together. This is much stronger, but also has a melting point close to that of silver, and so is much more difficult to remove. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazing

 

The metal alloy used for brazing has a melting point range of 618oC to 899oC. The melting point of pure silver is 962oC. Melting point of sterling would be lower and could be around 893oC . Hence I guess it can be done with care if one is lucky. Might be the restorers will only go up to a certain temperature like 750 or 800 oC and give up if the metal alloy does not start to melt?

If the melting point of the metal alloy is very close to the melting point of sterling, then the coin surface underneath has probably already been damaged in the brazing process anyway. 

We have all seen photos of coins which have stuff successfully removed. But surely there must be a fair number of cases where restoration is impossible.

Edited February 4, 2018 by Sword

[Ukstu]

You'd also need to pickle the coins once the mounts are removed to remove the heat marks thus leaving you with bright shiny clean coins which added on top of the mounting marks put them into the realms of scrap value. 

[Sword]

4 minutes ago, Ukstu said:

You'd also need to pickle the coins once the mounts are removed to remove the heat marks thus leaving you with bright shiny clean coins which added on top of the mounting marks put them into the realms of scrap value. 

I think the normal procedure is to artificially tone the coin afterwards. Obviously it is only worthwhile if the coin was valuable originally.

I agree that on this occasion, it is best to leave the chain alone. 

Edited February 4, 2018 by Sword

[DaveG38]

2 hours ago, Sword said:

The metal alloy used for brazing has a melting point range of 618oC to 899oC. The melting point of pure silver is 962oC. Melting point of sterling would be lower and could be around 893oC . Hence I guess it can be done with care if one is lucky. Might be the restorers will only go up to a certain temperature like 750 or 800 oC and give up if the metal alloy does not start to melt?

If the melting point of the metal alloy is very close to the melting point of sterling, then the coin surface underneath has probably already been damaged in the brazing process anyway. 

We have all seen photos of coins which have stuff successfully removed. But surely there must be a fair number of cases where restoration is impossible.

I don't think I'll try it on my coin, which is a 1725 WCC shilling in GVF. A very nice coin apart from the loop soldered to it.

[Paddy]

10 minutes ago, DaveG38 said:

I don't think I'll try it on my coin, which is a 1725 WCC shilling in GVF. A very nice coin apart from the loop soldered to it.

OOOOOH! That is one I would very much like to have! 

[bagerap]

As a point of interest for anyone brave enough to try desoldering, a desoldering wick is easily made by stripping off the outer covering of co-ax cable. The woven copper can then be slid of the inner sheath and pulled tight until it becomes a wick.