Clean and restore Militaria

[NewCollector]

A guy I know was in Berlin and went to some sort of flea market. He found a german cross type of medal which I identified as an War Merit Cross 1st class. It's hard to tell the authenticity of militaria from those types of flea markets but that is not why I am here. I would like to know if I could possibly restore and clean this medal. Here you can see a comparison between my Cross compared to a more restored one. If someone could explain to me how one could restore a metal war decoration or atleast polish it a bit, thanks

My War Merit Cross front

My War Merit Cross back

A random War Merit Cross

War Merit Cross.jpg (201.7 KiB) Viewed 1540 times

[matthew4108]

Your medal is made out of zinc while the second example is a tombak based specimen. Zinc by its very nature is a dull metal so any polishing it will be short lived at best. Furthermore- the cavities that are evident on your specimen are lost material and can not be brought back, at least not at the collectors, do it at home level. You can conserve it, making sure the aging process is drastically slowed down with a coat of vaseline or Renaissance Wax but complete restoration is unfortunately not possible.
BTW- the second medal pictured looks to be a good conditioned original piece rather than a restored one, at least to my untrained eye.

cheers

Matt

[NewCollector]

Your medal is made out of zinc while the second example is a tombak based specimen. Zinc by its very nature is a dull metal so any polishing it will be short lived at best. Furthermore- the cavities that are evident on your specimen are lost material and can not be brought back, at least not at the collectors, do it at home level. You can conserve it, making sure the aging process is drastically slowed down with a coat of vaseline or Renaissance Wax but complete restoration is unfortunately not possible.
BTW- the second medal pictured looks to be a good conditioned original piece rather than a restored one, at least to my untrained eye.

cheers

Matt

Yeah, after giving it some thought myself I realized that a complete restoration would be close to impossible. Atleast the swastika and the 1939 engraving is still intact so it is a bit aesthetically pleasing atleast. Thanks for taking your time to help a young fellow out, cheers

[John G.]

Your's is a 2nd Class.... not 1st cl.
John G.

[NewCollector]

Thanks for the clarification! My knowledge in Merit Crosses is not the best.

[ignorixa]

In my opinion, you should never try to clean/restore your awards. It kind of deletes its identity

Thomas

[NewCollector]

To restore an award or not is a debated topic and I think it all just comes down to personal preference as well.

[Ian Hulley]

I'm willing to clean awards by removing dirt, hair, fluff etc but that's all using an air duster and a very soft, old toothbrush.

Ian