Does silver turn dark grey in salt water/sand?

[MassSaltH2O]

Hi. I have been finding dark grey pieces of metal at the beach. They are not round, but more like broken/worn pieces of jewelry. I have found two pieces so far, both with that dark grey color. And, I almost forgot to mention, they were found with a Goldbug DP, with discrim set at 75, above clad pennies. Thanks, kev

 

[PowerDetecting]

They could be silver get some acid and test them out.
And I have had a few silver rings that where dark grey.

 

[KinTN]

Hi. I have been finding dark grey pieces of metal at the beach. They are not round, but more like broken/worn pieces of jewelry. I have found two pieces so far, both with that dark grey color. And, I almost forgot to mention, they were found with a Goldbug DP, with discrim set at 75, above clad pennies. Thanks, kev

Hi Kev, yes silver will darken to a deep shade of gray with exposure to a salt environnment; I asked a question yesterday about how long it takes for that to happen but no one seems to know. Coincidentally, I saw that Treasure Beaches Report ( http://treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com/ ) had a similiar thought today (1/11/13). Maybe he will figure it out soon. Color might turn out be an interesting way to date a fairly recent silver drop/find.

 

[tomcatpl]

do the magnet test silver will not stick to a magnet

 

[MassSaltH2O]

Thanks guys. Excellent responses. I bet a lot of detectorists would of found these, and thought they were trash. I almost did, but I kept them because of my rule No. 1: If I dont know for sure what a find is, I keep it.

 

[Furious T]

Silver tarnishes to grey in any environment, unless it is cleaned or polished regularly. Salt water(beaches) speed up the process, but unless you find the owner of one of these pieces, who can tell you when it was lost, we can only guess as to how long it takes for silver to tarnish at the beach. HH

 

[dewcon4414]

We get a dark gray CRUST on them even. Ive even seen it on some of the low K gold rings. So you know they were there awhile. The longer they are in there the more metal you will notice desolved once you use say electrolisis on them.

Dew

 

[KinTN]

I dont know about silver always tarnishing to gray. I've yet to see silver coins or jewelry have any tarnish on them when dug from an inland soil. Not saying it cant happen, just that it usually doesnt.

 

[pelanj]

This ring has been found in the salt water. It was very dark grey. I cleaned it by boiling it with aluminium foil in salt water (sort of like electrolytic cleaning). If you do this, be careful, this ring has cracked while I was trying to clean it one more step.

 

[John(Tx)]

atleast, that has been my experience. On land, it will also turn grey, especially in grassy areas where fertilizer has been used. HH

 

[biglry]

Here is an example of a hammered 925 silver ring I popped out of the Pacific ocean in 2011 with before and after cleaning pic...yes silver will turn anything from gray to black when setting in salt water and if it is left in sulfur water like a hot springs it will turn coal black in just minutes