Medieval silver pendent found. Would like to know a date and possible value

If anyone can instruct me how to add photos I’ll put them up. Cheers!

Have you thought of asking at the church?

The scrap value of silver isn't very high, a one ounce ingot of pure silver usually sells for between £27 -£28.

I doubt it would weigh much more than that.

If it has any other value it would be related to age, availability and the artistry.

You might get a good night on it, but not a lot more.

If it is connected to the church they might give you the best price.

Thanks for the response. The kind of value I assume it has is enough for me. I’ll put it straight on an e bay type platform. The thing is I just want to make sure I don’t underprice it.

I have thought about asking the church, but I’m in another town and getting there will be hard. Plus there’s a language barrier, as it’s Eastern European.

I know the value in silver wouldn’t be much. But for someone out there this would be desirable. I’ve seen pendent a slightly larger than this, from a similar era going for about 500£. But the standard brass ones could be 10£.

It has age written all over it. Very very pretty piece I wish I could show you. Any ideas on how to do that?

Actually I’ve figured I’ll just add some Imgur links to the images.

First one is as it was found

https://i.imgur.com/lK7LPEy.jpg

After cleaning

https://i.imgur.com/vSz6Tgm.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/ZpFfbGP.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/LN4zOf5.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/EH9aB5W.jpg

Not “medieval”

The chain attachment is of modern design.

Hi. Thanks for the response!

It can’t be less than 200 years old due to the build up of crud on it. I’m not an expert by any means on the chain link part. But silver cannot have this much build up in such a short space of time. I’ve found 200 year old coins almost clean. The gunk on it is inkeeping with medieval.

This guy is the patron saint of the church that was built around the same time he lived.
The design or carving is old style definitely. 1800s was way superior to this ive seen examples from that date of the same pendent. . As was 1600s.
I’m open to any input, but to call it modern is almost ridiculous taking all into consideration. The Chainlink couldn’t have been added after. Doesn’t calculate. Hope that doesn’t come across as rude.

Any more ideas guys? Thanks!

thre is a way to termine whether its about 150 years or younger using Energy Dispersive X Ray . Take itto a Uni that has a geology department and ask one of the teachers or grad students (Undergrad students know ttrick but probably arent given free reign to all the equip).

So you take a very teeny sample location along the back, just a small area thats marked with two dots and the beam is shone between the dots (This is a quality control method where other experts may want to run their own bams over the crucufix). xpose it to an enrgy disp XRAY (EDAX) beam. If its old silver, then it wasnt refined with the high purity of silver smithing of the mid 1800;s and up. Most rally old silver has measurable proportions of gold, palladium, or copper(s high as 5%) whreas modern silver is of much higher purity

(PPB or less of other nobles)

If its got Cu to lvels of, lik 10% its even older (Id then rfer that to an archeology specialist thats worked in actual medieval metallurgy)
EDAX is usually a first step to take as there are really no good "wet,non-destructive mans" that wouldnt dissolve some of the metals

Irenee Supont, a famous industrialist , collector of artifacts had one of the biggest collctions of Paul Revere Silver and Medieval silver). It was written about and visited. AND admired by connoisseurs and experts of silver. The Univrsity of Delaware has a musm studis program that was st up by Dupont and it as that program that found out that 85% of Duponts collction WAS FAKE. And it was all done by non-destructive EDAX . So Dupont, rather than running an hiding, set up a program to actually assess fakes and fraudulent artifacts and, today its like the center of th Antiques world . The program is known as the Winterthur Program. Maybe you could contact them because they probably have even more techy means to determine ages of metal plate an jewelry. (They may do it free if they see that they can use the data as a "teaching moment" ), or you could enroll in their museum studies program because theres still fellowship and assistantship money for serious studies.
(not 100% serious about returning to school)

also-chain linking in jewelry has a clear age relationship based on its construction. its sorta like barbed wire here in the US. W can almost date the settlements by looking at the barb wire scraps laying about

Thank you for the detailed response!

Part of me thinks I should contact a museum too. Thing is with the pandemic plus other obstacles, this is looking like a doubtful Avenue to Pursue.

I’m still going to look into what you’ve explained. Fascinating subject.

Thanks again!