First post on this board.
I guess it's the best place for my question.
I found this shield under my parents house.
It's cast iron and made to hang on the wall. Most likely a tourist product but my parents had no idea they even had it, havn't gotten it themselves.
I just want to see if any of you guys would recognize who the man is.
Might be depicting Ajax.
Yeah I can see that, although he has a spear instead of a shortsword.
I'm also confused the the surrounding faces, the one at the top seems to resemble faces from india, the others from christian art.
I'm sure it's a mishmash of "cool shit", but the mold is quite well made.
There are no stamps of what I can find.
This is probably made in the late 19th century (1870 or so). They had an obsession with classical and medieval stuff and just threw anything that's cool on there.
Here is one with some weird medieval images and what I think is hercules in the middle.
Ajax is sometimes depicted with a sword and shield. You can see examples on coins.
Ah, nice.
Well I guess it's safe to polish the rust off and keep it on my wall then.
Thanks for the help!
>Well I guess it's safe to polish the rust off
Don't. Don't ever do this with antiques.
>antique
1870 isn't considered antique is it?
Sure, there might not be many of these shields left, but it's still nothing spectacular.
It's cast iron, not hand crafted.
To elaborate: Rust is just the outer layer of the object which has undergone oxygenation. When you 'polish the rust off' you're stripping the entire exterior of the object off of it. Not only does this constitute damage itself, but now it's exposed what used to be protected to more oxidation.
>1870 isn't considered antique is it?
Generally speaking, antique means at least 100 years.
>Sure, there might not be many of these shields left, but it's still nothing spectacular.
Nothing spectacular, but it's still a really nifty item you got there, and that niftiness is only going to increase with time.
It's Iron, so you're never even going to get the nice shine you temporarily get from scrapping off the tarnish off silver.
I'm talking about kitchen grade scotch brite, not an angle grinder. Not looking for a out-of the box look, all shiny.
It's been lying half buried in the cold dirt, so it has gathered some rusty warts. I'll keep those unless they come off easily.
>I'm talking about kitchen grade scotch brite
I audibly winced. Please, please do not do this. This is like, the number 1 most common problem with antiques.
I'LL FUCKING DO IT user, THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO STOP ME!
Please give this away to a museum for safekeeping because what you said physically hurt me.
If I polish it up, I can sell it for more money!
No, no. You'll reduce the monetary value by half, at least.
Hope that shit is cursed and your whole family gets slaughtered.
Shiny sells.
This was years ago, I've been keeping it in my storage room. Got reminded of it today.
If anything, this entire apartment block will be cursed.
where are you from?
Scandinavia, which is why I find it weird that a greek oriented shield is here.
that is weird. look really hard for a "made in china" on it.
i found a roman styled sword in my garage that i thought was cool as fuck and i told everyone about it, but after a while i saw "made in italy" on it.
That's what I did earlier when checking out how I'd remove the rust.
No stamps either.
No problem m8.
Removing some surface rust carefully won't hurt its value, which is probably not that much to begin with. And what museum would you even give this to?
Removing rust and polishing is a problem with very old items, or items with a delicate surface. Since, as you mentioned, you risk removing a large layer of the item and risk damage. No one gives a crap if you remove some rust from a late 19th early 20th century cast iron item.