Featured How best to polish silver gilt spoons

Got these at the thrift in a bag with other spoons. Easily identified as Ela Sterling, but they are really tarnished. The Sunshine cloth barely put a dent in it. I have Wright's silver polish or Simichrome, would that be okay for the silver gilt? Any other tips?

 

Ooo, I like them! Even better cleaned up, I'm sure.

 

The dark stuff on the backs is not tarnish, it's grungy dirt. Gentle dish soap in warm water, soft sponge or cloth. Soak for a while to loosen. It will probably take multiple soaks.

 

Thank you, I'll give that a try. It's quite smooth to the touch so was thinking some kind of discoloration in the coating, but easy to try the cleaning. Will post back.

 

Just because I have never heard of "Ela Sterling" and could not find it easily, could you post a picture of the marking? (I know all that gunk is going to make it difficult.)

 

Ah! Danish?

 

Yes, Denmark. Ela being the maker's name I think... I should have added "Denmark".

 

'ELa' is the Egon Lauridsen mark - Jeff Herman recommends cleaning with hand sanitizer on a cotton ball, and I've found it especially useful on silver gilt, he does say it should be aloe-free, and if you look, many have aloe as an ingredient, to help condition the hands...

https://www.hermansilver.com/care.htm

~Cheryl

 

So far the warm soapy water is not working but not quite done with the test.

I just happen to have hand sanitizer without aloe. So will try that next.

Thank you all!

 

I like those.

 

Follow-up: The soap/water and hand sanitizer didn't work. No matter how much I tried nothing came off at all.

In desperation, I just tried a tiny bit of Simichrome on the back of one, and (with some effort with a soft cloth) it took the dark spots off and left shiny gold behind. Almost thinking I might need to go the silver polish route on these. Is this especially bad?

Appreciate all the suggestions.

 

Yeah, doesn't work for me all the time either - it will take off a bit of the gilding, but they'll look better, just be as gentle as you can (try the Wright's first, it's less abrasive than Simichrome)...

~Cheryl

 

Thank you, Cheryl. Will do!

 

The FB group restore repair repurpose vintage jewelry specialist, Sandy Campbell, recommend Tarnex on tarnished gilt Silver\vermeil, because polish removes part of gilding. I trust her advices
If it don't works, go for polish as Cheryl said.

 

Good to know. Thank you Krya!

 

But only on gilt silver, not old simple silver which becomes dull white

 

I think Cheryl's advice is really nice. When dealing gilded silver, the method I use is a very wet q-tip with some wrights on it and very very light pressure and patience. I'm working much slower than non-gilded, and I'm not trying to achieve a showroom polish, but instead knocking down tarnish carefully while attempting to maintain the gold coat. It's a delicate balance of polishing away tarnish and maintaining the gold hue.

 

Those are lovely.

 

Hi @Lucille.b when you do get the time do post a picture of how they cleaned up. I am most excited to see them glowing.

 

Hello! I just came to own some of these. Did you ever figure out a good solution? Thank you