This one is easy - I agree with the others - leave it alone.
It would be more difficult if there was only a small patch or two of corrosion. Generally then I clean those spots because they are "damaging" the medal.
I don't and won't clean to get a nice shiny medal. Patina is an important part of the story of the medal.
The only thing I would remove would be the verdigris of the reverse to avoid corrosion with some vinegar, to keep the rest of the patina.
I´d leave the rest as it is.
There's nothing in the streets
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Are now parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight The Who, Won't get fooled again
I surmise we take a much more careful approach than the veterans themselves ever took--so many vets polished their medals, wore them without regard to order of precedence, etc. But yeah, I preserve the heck out of them. Only soap and water.
The thing that surprised me the most is, depite the fact that it's rusty as sin, the pin on the back still works and the metal feels really strong. I have far newer medals with pins that fel much flimsier!
Tommy
Oh and one more thing.
Is this a Type 2 piece? Issued 47ish? The ring seems pretty U-shaped to me, even more so in real life.
I would leave it as is. I sometimes remove dirt from medals (like the stuff that often surrounds the OPW hammer and sickle), but other than that I don't touch them. I absolutely never replace ribbons or suspensions.
Now returning tp the topic of Great War or earlier ground dug awards, I recently found this Austro-Hungarian War Medal Type 2 (For actions 1873-1901) for sale after being ground dug in Slovenia. As with all ground dug items the story is not certain but this was probably lost during "routine" rather than combat (although it is not impossible for it to be lost due to action), in the late 19th or earliest part of the 20th century.
This certainly wasn't "smashed up" to cash in as it cost me less than £2 delivered.
