Polishing Silver

Gentle Friends I had a few questions about how I polish my silver and keep it shiny...  Let me say up front that if you use your silver pieces, that the tarnish will not build up (tarnish is the sulfur dioxide in the air reacting with the metal) - not only will it stay cleaner and be easier to polish, but you are building up that lovely warm patina that will make it move valuable.  The difference between "tarnish:" and "Patina" is that tarnish is over all discolored silver and "Patina" can only occur on a piece of silver after lots of use and handling.  Some silver pieces even come from the factory with an applied oxidation which is a darkening of the decoration or design, so be careful when you polish to not remove that which makes your silver lovely and valuable.

In the mail yesterday I received a small Sterling bowl (Towle "Normandy" pattern) that I had won on the Bay of evil, and it arrived, as most silver does, tarnished and filthy, notice the really black oxidized spots.....

Here's some of my silver with the "new" piece in front

So I pulled out a few smaller pieces to show the difference in "clean" and not so clean silver.  For the most part there is only one way to get silver beautifully clean, good old fashioned "elbow grease."  In addition to "EG" I like to use a nice paste cleaner...

I grew up using Wrights and have cleaned tons of silver, my Granny's, my mom's and mine over the years, there are other pastes out there but I always seem to come back to Wrights.  There are also some very abrasive "dips" that instantly "clean silver", and although they do get the tarnish off, they also strip a piece of all its warmth, turning silver into something that looks like chrome.  Yes, I do keep a bottle of Tarnex, but use it infrequently and when I do I use it, I use it sparingly to dab out black spots that I can not rub out.

I start off by getting my silver towels out, old bath towels I use for silver.  I clean my silver in the kitchen sink with running clean water...

...put a little of the paste on the sponge then rub any tarnish off, next rinse off and repeat as necessary until clean..... move on the next piece.  I do a few piece at a time...

... and let the clean pieces sit under running water until I am ready to switch to drying mode.  You have to either dry as you go or let a few pieces build up, if you sit a piece of silver to the side without drying it off you run the risk of water marks and that defeats your cleaning the silver to a lustrous shine.

When all the silver is clean and dried off you will have some lovely things to use and look at.......

... you can see that all the tarnish came off the bowl, even the black spots inside came off with a little extra rubbing and attention.  I love to clean my silver and usually haul out some of it weekly in rotation, if I have not used it in a while... I find it very therapeutic.  Let me know if you have any questions.

That's about it for today sports fans.  Thanks for stopping by, do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

PS I have not been compensated for this commercial by Wrights Silver Cream, I just love the Stuff!!