Hello one and all,
I have come into possession of two Elizabeth II Scottish broadswords, one with sacabbard the other without. The etchings are intact, the basket hilts still have their red felt linings, and the one I have with me right now is #96175. The lady who had them from some ex-boyfriend left them in a damp basement, so they have a nice even coat of rust on the blades. The question is: what is the best way to clean them without altering all the nice etchings of thistles and royal cyphers ?
AND, if anyone has a notion as to value, please pm with your input, these may end up in a local Gun show come winter.
Thanks,
Jean-Carle Hudon

I have started cleaning up the blades with liquid rust remover and buffers on dremels and such. The cyphers show one to be a Black Watch Highland regt of Canada, and the other seems to have a letter F surimposed on the letter H, again with Canada and the Crown. After polishing, the blades are still tarnished, but not pitted.
The third Wilkinson is a medieval style, with brass crossguard and blade etched with the feathers and ICH DIen, 1969 Inestiture. I presume it was a commercial comemorative piece for the coming of age of the Prince of Wales. This blade is pitted, and has four nasty finger marks near the point. It is numbered 1512, so many of these must have been put in circulation. This one is peened, whereas the basket hilts are screw-tops. Their ray skins are in good shape.They tightened up nicely. Also the baskets are probably stainless, as they had no rust problem whatsoever.
I'll try to post pics when I'm done.