Does silver corrode?

BrotherJohnf_2

I have had some silver bullion buried for a few years and wanted to move it recently. Unfortunately I have found I did not protect it well enough and it has tarnished a lot. I have been getting some advice and someone said its nothing to worry about you can turn tarnish back into shiny silver by a process in water with tinfoil. I was also told by someone that silver (unlike gold) forms a protective layer called tarnish, but this can be turned back into silver without affecting the weight. Is this true?
Someone else said that over time the tarnish does turn into corrosion and eat away at the silver I.E. reduce the weight and mass. Eventually (100's of years) if its not protected correctly the silver is corroded away to nothing like other metals.
Got me thinking there was a story of a find in a secret bunker in Russia somewhere where someone protected their silver very well in vinegar wrappings and they stayed untarnished for a long time.
But the big picture thinking about thousands of years of human history. There are sometimes gold hoards found that have been preserved throughout the millenniums because gold does not corrode. So the amount of gold in the world is not really going down. Is this part of the reason why 95% of silver is no longer with us (as well as because of consumption) and 95% of gold is still with us?
So here is my 2 part question, is the silver that was around say 6000 years ago still with us? Or has it all been corroded away over time?
Also what is the best way to protect a few small stashes of a few thousand ounces of silver buried here and there?

Stompa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterling_silver#Tarnish_and_corrosion

BrotherJohnf_2

Stompa wrote: »

wiki, silver

Thanks Stompa, just read though it again, I have read it before. But still no answer to my question.

The gold from several thousand years ago is still with us, but is the silver?

Stompa

BrotherJohnf wrote: »

The gold from several thousand years ago is still with us, but is the silver?

Apparently some is, though it can suffer from something known as 'embrittlement':

http://www.edax.com/download/Embrittlement%20of%20Ancient%20Silver-1.pdf

atypical

I'm no expert, but according to the wiki article the tarnish is silver sulphide i.e. elemental silver has been converted into a new compound. Removing the tarnish will therefore remove some of the original elemental silver. Whether the tarnish is of significant quantity to materially effect the weight of the piece is questionable.

The silver and aluminum foil trick is your best bet. It will convert the silver sulphide back to silver (though if I'm not sure if you'd lose the silver in solution or if it would stay on the silver piece).

sabretoothtigger

If you got something silver plated. Continually cleaning and removing the top layer will remove the plating but then its just a thin layer.

Over a hundred years you wont really lose any value from real solid silver and you shouldnt be constantly cleaning investment grade silver, just keep it wrapped in cling film

agrinnall

Basic chemistry will tell you that all stable isotopes remain in existence pretty much indefinitely (certainly millions of years) unless they are transmuted into another element by the action of external radioactivity. Therefore all of the silver ever mined by humans still exists as silver in some form. However, it probably will react with oxygen and other elements very slowly (but not as slowly as gold) and may be less resistant to abrasion, so it will gradually either become a silver compound, unrecognisable as sliver without analysis, or turn into particles so small that they are unusable, and possibly invisible to the naked eye.

Bigdeflationfirst

sabretoothtigger wrote: »

If you got something silver plated. Continually cleaning and removing the top layer will remove the plating but then its just a thin layer.

Over a hundred years you wont really lose any value from real solid silver and you shouldnt be constantly cleaning investment grade silver, just keep it wrapped in cling film

Are you sure clingfilm? I thought it still corrodes, if indeed the answer to this thread is yes that silver does corrode.

If you buy rolls of 20 silver US eagles or 25 Canadian maple leafs then you get a free special plastic tube that is airtight and corrosion proof. So just bury them in the tubes and they will be fine for decades. The manipulation will be over in the next few years though so no need to go over the top protecting your bullion.

Joe_Bloggs

There is a lot of it in old photographs, pre-1947 coinage, and as part of the fillings in teeth.
Silver is a consumable commodity with countless diverse applications.
J_B.