To clean or not to clean
Jim and I did a trade on this collar. I was curious about the material. Was there in fact a different colour for NCO badges of this first issue CAF collar? Officer badges have red in the crown and it was my understanding that NCO issues were always void, at least in the Type 2 collars. These first issue, "Type 1" are so uncommon, that it was possible that one has just never turned up. So, at the risk of destroying the patina and perhaps the badge, I set out to clean it. I removed the silver crown and very carefully, the delicate backing. As you can see from the pics, it was very dirty. The warp threads (about 30/inch) are normally white but even after cleaning are still quite brown. The red of the silk weft does show up so mystery solved. It should be noted that the entire piece of material is only about 5 mm in height. The little piece of material was just left to soak in a mild soap solution (Woolite) for several hours and occasionally agitated.
The remaining bit of the badge was soaked in vinegar mixed with a bit of salt and frequently brushed with a soft old toothbrush over about 3 hours. To clean the tarnish from the silver, a similar solution but with aluminum added did the trick in about 30 minutes. A good rinsing including bicarb to neutralize any remaining acid and a light coat of wax at the end to slow down future oxidation and voila!
There are arguments for leaving old items untouched but in this case, I think I did the right thing.
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24-02-15, 10:05 PM
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