Featured Cleaning tips for HIGHLY tarnished silver

Wrights works fine for me. I just really looked at the goblets themselves; I'd bet someone had these wrapped in plastic wrap to "retard tarnish". (ack)

 

I’ve drunk horchata a fair bit in Catalunya. It’s yummy.

 

First of all, these are lovely!!!

There are some good recommendations for brands here, I don't recommend brands anymore (at least not directly on the forum). I would offer up this advice on the process for polishing. I'll assume you may end up getting a foaming polish and using a soft cloth or a sponge applicator to start polishing (both good options in my opinion):

When you start polishing with a foaming polish, the name of the game is to start with light pressure, and make lots of passes over the piece. These pieces are like a blank canvas (what I mean is the pieces are very flat and easy to work with compared to a repousse piece), and they will be easiest to work on with a sponge/soft cloth. Take your time; it's better to polish with 100 light passes then to try to press really hard on the pieces to get the tarnish to come off quickly. I recommend getting a good bubbly lather worked up on the piece and rotate the piece around as you apply a very gentle pressure.

Once you do this for awhile, you should start to see improvements, and you will probably notice 80-90% of the tarnish fading away. You'll be left with some stubborn remaining tarnish and perhaps a few dark black circles to deal with:

-Remaining tarnish: now you can start with the same light pressure, personally I try to do big straight passes instead of swirling the polish sponge as the swirling action tends to leave marks in my opinion. Keep those straight passes going and slowly start to increase your pressure. When I'm working on stubborn marks I'm trying to keep enough cream on my sponge so it doesn't get too foamy. I also use more polish and less water at this stage.

-For stubborn black marks, and the cracks/crevices of the piece, good old q-tips with a dab of water first and a dab of polish second. Replace your q-tip with a fresh one often. Especially for q-tips, I start with light pressure and I keep my motion of the q-tip straight not circular whenever possible.

-If these pieces have gold wash (hard to tell from the photos) you would proceed much slower and very light pressure. Polishing guilded/gold washed sterling takes a little more patience, but if done correctly you can keep the gold intact.

Good luck and here's the good news: if you do it right the first time, these pieces will hopefully never get as tarnished as they are now!

 

Thank you, MrNate. My free time for the next five months will be taken up with your instructions!

Seriously, it is good to be reminded that patience has its rewards.

 

I wound up with Goddard's Silver Foam from Amazon....I believe they're about the same.....works great!!!

 

Thank you so much Mr. Nate. This forum is so kind, patient and thorough with beginners like me. I truly appreciate the help and hope to be able to pass it on someday.

I would most certainly have gone in heavy handed and tried to scrub everything off.

 

We will need to see the finished product so to speak.

 

Rice and Almonds (sometimes but not always)
No chocolate unless you are making a variation.