Silver Jewelry Care
If you’re like me, you prefer “white” metals (eg, silver, white gold, platinum) to yellow. I have quite a bit of silver jewelry and also prefer to work with silver though I do make the occasional yellow gold piece.
You’ve probably noticed that your favorite silver ring or pendant seldom needs any attention. Constant wear will keep your silver from tarnishing (unless you happen to be one of those unlucky people whose body chemistry does nasty things to your jewelry). What about the pieces that you DON’T wear all that often though? If you just toss them in your drawer or jewelry box they’re likely to be an unlovely shade of gray or even black the next time you want to wear them. I’ll share some ideas for how to deal with that in my next article, but for now I’d like to give you some tips on how to keep that from happening in the first place. As they say, “an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure”.
Since tarnish occurs when the silver reacts with elements in the air (particularly sulphur), it just makes sense to minimize your jewelry’s contact with the air. Putting your jewelry into a ziplock bag and pushing out as much air as possible before sealing it will go a long way to helping prevent tarnish. You can also buy anti-tarnish strips to put in with your jewelry or silverware, but you don’t even need to hunt down a source for these as a simple piece of blackboard chalk will do the job nicely. That’s right, just put a piece of chalk into the bag with your jewelry, squeeze out the excess air and seal!
If you should be taking a vacation by the sea or actually live right on one of the coasts, the advice above is especially important. There’s nothing like sea breezes to blacken silver in a big hurry.
The following link will take you to a site with lots of information on restoring silver. http://www.silversmithing.com/care.htm#Cleaning%20Silver
The information on the above site is focused mostly on the care and restoration of silverware, tea and coffee services, etc., but you may find much of it useful in general. My next article will deal with cleaning and polishing silver with the emphasis on jewelry in particular.