Greetings all. I am new to this group. My husband recently was given his great great grandfather's Calvary sabre and scabbard. The family is from South Carolina and his parents actually have a large painted portrait of his GG grandfather in their home in his uniform which is very cool. The scabbard is in really bad shape. The tip and bottom 6 inches are missing, and the rest is quite dry and very cracked. it was kept by a wood fireplace in the scabbard for as long as my husband can remember. Nothing has been done to it in at least 50 years if not more for fear of doing something wrong. No cleaning, no conditioning. Similarly with the blade. There is fine etching along the blade, but the sword itself looks somewhat black. I don't know if this is just patina, or rust. We want to know what to do to preserve the sword and scabbard in at least the condition it is in now so it does not further deteriorate. But it is hard to know what to do, and we desperately don't want to do the wrong thing. We know not to get anywhere near it with sandpaper or abrasives. We have no idea if the sword has any monetary value. Theoretically we would like to have it looked at by an expert but I don't know how to go about finding one. (edited to add the picture of the portrait. Name Henry A Gurkin)
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