Cleaning Silver Collectors Spoons- The Final Reveal

I know I speculate through fiction here on most days... "What would happen if I stuck my characters on a planet with sentient wind?" Most of the time speculation is done in the real world though. For example... "What would these look like if I could remove this tarnish?" Questions like these can lead you on a quest, not only to find answers, but to discover some new things along the way as well!

Tuesday of this past week I told you that I was busy cleaning a set of collectible spoons that had been passed down to me from my mom. Here are some of the before and after pictures:

Spoon before cleaning

Kinda hard to see all that detail under the tarnish huh.

 

 AND... Now For The Clean Reveal!

Its kinda hard to see on this rack- but I assure you they are all just as clean, even though the picture makes some of them still look tarnished. Here's the last rack:

The top row is clean in this picture.

  

All completely clean and tarnish free!

There were many of these spoons that I had never seen clean before, being that they were my mothers they have been there for most of my life. Many of them had details hidden under the tarnish that I never even knew existed! It was really cool seeing them come to sparkling life again!

I found some spoons in this collection that I even remember giving to mom years ago.

For those of you who have silver- or silver plated items you are wanting to clean, here is some advice:

• First, yes you can polish them with toothpaste but it takes twice as long and doesn't come out half as shinny. (this was one of my first discoveries... it took me a whole day to do the tallest rack with toothpaste. It was hard work and then I still ended going back over them with the silver polish)
• Second, some silver polish is ABSOLUTELY your best friend here.
• A washcloth for rubbing the polish on, a bucket of water to rinse, and a towel for drying and you are good to go.
• You will also want to wear rubber gloves. The first reason is that the polish can irritate your skin. The second reason is that the oils from your skin will cause future tarnish. Clean and handle your silver with gloves at all times if possible.
• Another helpful tip. An old toothbrush for those high detailed areas comes in very handy. I keep one stored under my sink just for this purpose!

Do you have any things you collect? I'd love to hear about them! How do you display them and keep them clean?