Many detectorists lack the specialist resources to conserve/preserve their finds, and may unintentionally treat them in ways that harm them.
One of the most frequent questions detectorists ask is how to care for their finds. Many of these objects may eventually be donated to museums. But inappropriate “kitchen table” treatments and storage may jeopardise their long-term survival or remove important associated material, such as mineral preserved organics. How should we tackle these issues?
The online PAS webpages on conservation can be found here.
Protecting your finds
PAS have also designed basic ‘preservation kits’ or “Dry box kits” containing special packaging and storage materials you might need which can be bought (i.e. air-tight box, silica gel, finds bags, humidity indicating strips etc).
For details click here
Detecnicks in Sussex have now started to supply these type of dry boxes – you can visit their website here.
Alternatively for a list of suppliers for individual items click here.
Conservation Register – you can feed in what you want conserving and where you are and it will give you a list of possibles
UKICAS would recommend the use of silica gel as a desiccant for the long-term storage of metal objects. Health and safety guidelines must be followed. The only disadvantage being that the gel will have to be regenerated every 6 to 18 months depending of the levels of moisture in the object and the moisture migration rates of the container.
Lancashire County Museum Service undertakes conservation of a wide variety of material on a charging basis. These services are available to the public as well as other museums across the North West of England.
The costs of museum conservation are inevitably high as there is a considerable overhead tied up in equipment, premises and training. Most self-employed conservators charge an hourly rate of between £25 and £50 per hour with the costs of materials and transport on top of that. This compares well with hairdressers and mechanics and is a lot cheaper than plumbers! Their charges are around £30 per hour depending on the job.
In Lancashire they are investigating ways of providing training that will enable finders to carry out basic cleaning safely themselves. Bear in mind that many chemicals cannot be safely used in domestic circumstances and some specialist investigation can only be done in well-equipped laboratories.