Cleaning silver flatware / cutlery that was handed down to me.

Questions on polishing, restoration, conservation + manufacturing techniques
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Kale
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Feb 07, 2018 11:04 pm

Cleaning silver flatware / cutlery that was handed down to me.

Post by Kale »

Hi All,

Firstly I'd like to acknowledge the effort of other posters who have already explained how to clean silver. Unfortunately Photobucket has stopped linking pictures from forums and that effort and expertise is no longer available.

So apologies if I'm asking question or displaying a picture that has previously been posted on this forum.

Now to the problem. I've received a set of flatware, spoons, forks, teaspoons, soup spoons etc which I assume are silver plated. They are made by Viner and Hall sometime in the early 1900' decades (not sure, as I tried to find this information but failed!). Anyway I am having some problems with cleaning .

https://i.imgur.com/pV7o86H.jpg

I have given them a bath using the baking soda / foil combination but this does not seem to remove all of the dark tarnish. On the teaspoon the spoon itself comes up with a goldish back colour.

https://i.imgur.com/N0fR6Bx.jpg

I have also noticed that a few of the spoons have "white marks" which I have attempted to photograph.

https://i.imgur.com/w0SXbZK.jpg

I have also tried "Silvo" (available here in AU) and this hasn't really worked to get rid of the white marks and difficult to remove tarnish.

Help would be most appreciated. I would really like to try and use these for dinner one day. That would be great! Thanks in advance. :-)
dognose
Site Admin
Posts: 59003
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:53 pm
Location: England

Re: Cleaning silver flatware / cutlery that was handed down to me.

Post by dognose »

Hi Kale,

Welcome to the Forum.

You need to embed your images as very few members will click on such links.

Trev.
Kale
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Feb 07, 2018 11:04 pm

Re: Cleaning silver flatware / cutlery that was handed down to me.

Post by Kale »

Hi Trev,

Thanks for the welcome :)

Images embedded below (will remember for future). Not sure how to edit my original post. Sorry about that :)

Image

Image

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paulh
contributor
Posts: 463
Joined: Wed Nov 29, 2006 6:02 pm
Location: Cheshire, England

Re: Cleaning silver flatware / cutlery that was handed down to me.

Post by paulh »

I have just seen this post, so I am sorry for the delay in my reply. In the bottom picture the spoon on the right appears to have salt pits. This is corrosion caused by a combination of salt and damp conditions. This has caused the silver plating to be breached through to the base metal. The blue/gold marks seem to be in a finger print shape and look like just simple but severe tarnishing. I would have thought that a proprietary brand of silver cleaner such as Goddard's Silver Foam would remove them. In cases of severe tarnish such as this you might try a "silver dip". This is not a polish but a liquid which removes the silver sulphides which cause tarnish. I would not recommend the use of the soda/aluminium method, as this is a mild form of electro-stripping.

I hope this works and you can have your dinner party in style.

Paul.
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