An Odd "SS" Ring

[TrondK]

To bad you forgot to take the very important "before" cleaning photos.

[Wagriff]

True, but halfway through, I Did remember to leave Some of the black patina and crud in place for just such a purpose! lol Unfortunately, Foresight is always better than hindsight....The only earlier photos I have are the ones the digger sent to me and they are, frankly, blurred messes of little help. (That and he annoyingly used a photo host service that blocks copying of them..)

[Glenn66]

Even people like our own Maxim here have been accused of this.

I follow Maxim's posts quite closely yet haven't come across such accusations before. Do you have a link to the thread where this occurred? Were the accusations substantiated?

[Wagriff]

As I recall, the accuser was saying that a ring that Maxim had dug was too new and clean to be genuine, etc etc. The incident began with post number 801 on the North Karelia thread. And, no, of course, no substantiation was made(how could it? lol) but it was a shock, nonetheless, to see the even mention of such nonsense. I believe that several of the worst posts were eventually removed, but there are enough left to get the gist of what it was all about. Battlefields in North Karelia( SS-Nord Division)

[Glenn66]

Ah yes, I remember that guy...knew everything there was to know about dug relics except that ID tags were often zinc.

[harryamb2]

imo its good.

[Australia]

It certainly looks the part with good detail , if the price was good even better

[odal]

I've just been trying to find an answer as to why "cast" rings are seeming to be excavated on dig sites by reputable diggers but are being dismissed as reproductions. I absolutely Agree, a great number of them Are fakes, but when dug on site by honest diggers, how are these others to be explained? Is what is being seen as casting porosity possibly the corroding in the soil of the roughly 20% alloy of the metal that is Not silver? I simply do not know. Certainly, a person can find stunningly perfect examples that have been buried, but is this due to soil chemistry in that area? Or metal purity? This is a question that has been nagging on me for some time now-especially so now that the prevalence of battlefield diggers seems to have grown exponentially. This is why I posted this ring here-to illustrate the question and to open discussion on the matter abit.

One of the chief troubling aspects is that potentially, there could be a considerable number of excavated pieces that have been dismissed as fakes and are now disposed of and lost. It seems almost incredible to believe that both dedicated professionals and devoted amateur diggers occasionally run into town and purchase a handful of fake rings, take them home and age them with acid, fire, etc and then slip them into their inventorys of excavated items that they sell to finance future work and sell them to unsuspecting customers of long standing. Even people like our own Maxim here have been accused of this. Is there an answer that is being missed here? I wish that I knew.

Cast/die struck/pressed.
We still had this discussion.
IMO of course not all patterns are struck, but most period german/middle european produced ones.

The ring from topic start is such a pattern. Period ones of this are struck. Look only on the "hollow" backsite of the plate. This appearance is typical for die pressing/strucking method without a soft interlayer while pressing.

Hope you understand my thoughts although my bad english.

[Wagriff]

This I understand, of course, but the question remains as to how cast rings turn up during excavations by reputable diggers? And are they actually cast, or just semi-corroded low alloy silver which has reacted to soil chemistry? The ring illustrated was dug in situ by a reputable person that has a proven considerable track record. It is, indeed, difficult to comprehend given the circumstances of it's recovery just how it could not be genuine and period. And yet, if the accepted theory is that most all rings of the era were not made by this method, then that is exactly what is being said. It is a troublesome thing to figure.

[Glenn66]

If you are in any way unhappy or develop doubts about your ring William, I will happily buy it off you!