Coles or Woolies. Food containers. Check for no PVC content - it reacts with the silver. Chuck in a couple of those moisture absorbing packets from vitamins or something and Bob's your Uncle.
Honestly if you're going to bury it then it's probably not something that is rare or proof so you probably couldn't care less if it gets a little tarnished from PVC etc. It certainly won't rot! I mean it came out of the ground in the first place.
Earth shifts and moves about, it will pop the top off any of the boxes without a screw top. Water and silver don't go together that well, so if you have nice waterproof container and water does get in, it will just fill the container and not drain away. Pack everything in heat sealed freezer bags and read the book http://www.amazon.com/How-Bury-Your-Goods-Underground/dp/1581605803 it is only $8 and has some good tips in it.
I've heard that Mylar bags do the job well You can seal them with a "foodsaver", if you don't have one an iron will do the job.
Well I saw an article in a metal detecting magazine. A detectorist dug up a jar from around the roots of a tree, it was full of a green liquid, when he took the lid of and poured the liquid away the jar was full of the remains of some pre decimal currency that had been burried. The contents were in pretty poor shape. The green probably came from copper coins mostly but the silver also wasn't in great shape. Coins have a greater surface area to volume ratio than a big bar, so they would show more signs of corrosion. Other than a bit of surface damage a big bar should be fine if it was sitting in water for an extended period of time. Of course the stash was probably there a lot longer than it was supposed to be and obviously not checked periodically. If you were only buring short term then a bit of water won't hurt, of course it will be full of disolved salts and chemicals and if there are any sulphides, a common form of pollution, then you will get tarnishing. Shipwreck coins are often found in a large congealed lump and have to be separated and cleaned before they are sold to collectors. Of course, if you are burying gold you should be fine!
Hi If it was me who had to store my silver under ground, I'd go to a sports and outdoor store, they have some small plastic barrels that are used for rafting, kayaking, etc, they can stand up to being beaten against rocks, etc. it would be my preferred. Henrik
How bad an effect are we talking about? and what brings it on? being in contact with pvc?.. What if 1 was to individually wrap the bars b4 putting them into anything conaining pvc? ... ive always been curious on this topic.
Have a look at this thread: http://forums.silverstackers.com/topic-22055-safe-storage-of-silver-advice-sought.html
Will the silver react with the aluminum of the Mylar bags?.. if the silver is wrapped in a towel and not touching the bag?
The chemicals in a towel will most likely do more damage to silver than aluminium will do. As stated above, see this thread: http://forums.silverstackers.com/topic-22055-safe-storage-of-silver-advice-sought.html
You're very welcome to come on over! I really don't need to burry it at all because we have a reverse cycle vacuum cleaner (a toddler), the house is such a mess I'll give a 1kg bar to whoever finds our stash :lol: Thanks for the link to the other thread, from what I can gather an aluminium container is best. To keep moisture out put the bars into plastic snap locks that are PVC free such as Glad Bags and also chuck in with the silver some Silica Gel Bags (like the little bags you get in vitamin bottles, if not does anyone know where you can buy them from?) Edit: I've also bought a gold combibar, can anyone point me in the right direction for storing that? I understand they are already wrapped but I might buy some more gold that isn't. Cheers
You can buy them from most photography/camera stores or you'll be able to pick them up on ebay for a few bucks. Edit - Here is a decent sized one on ebay 280826514724