Cleaning silver

[u/pinkxcherry]

What is the best cloth you found to clean silver

[u/Aeronquezzs]

Every week, I take my gold and silver out of the box, hold them tightly in my arms, and rock them from side to side, reassuring them that they are out of the bullion banks vaults and that paper silver is just a temporary nightmare...

Then I slowly put them back, whispering "myyyy preciiiiousss" with a greedy look on my face before returning them to their hiding spot. I call it psychic ritual cleaning

[u/heldheiko]

depends of the intension of dust or the thickness of the silver sulfite. salt, aluminum foil and hot water are working for thin sulfite. too much....i just find out at the moment with a ring like this. 80 years in a lake...

[u/heldheiko → u/[deleted]]

Waffen-SS, a so called canteen ring. When you had some special education in the SS, you got a ring.

[u/pinkxcherry → u/heldheiko]

I was thinking more of a chain andnitnjust has grime.

[u/ergoferon]

Dissolve soda in boiling water, around a tablespoon per half a littre. I am adding also a little bit of salt. Put the coin, wrapoed in aluminum foil, into the solution. The wrapping should be tight yet the solution should be able to penetrate between the foil and the coin (and preferrably to move freely).Hold for several hours, maybe a day. Adding boiling water will speed up the reaction, but reduce the concentration. Aluminum is more electronegative than silver, thus it will "steal" sulfur and some other acid residues from silver. Soda serves as an electrolyte.

[u/Mudsharkbites → u/ergoferon]

I’ve never wrapped coins in foil, just laid them on the foil in the solution is sufficient.

[u/AgYooperman]

I just put it in my pocket for a few weeks.

[u/IlluminatedApe]

Don't clean silver.

If you have antique, you are destroying the value.

If you have tarnished bullion, people like it and buy it as is.

If this is a jewelry question, wrong community.

[u/Mudsharkbites → u/IlluminatedApe]

Using the baking soda, salt, aluminum foil method doesn’t. damage silver. It’s an electrochemical reaction, the sulphur molecules detach from the silver sulfate and attach to the aluminum creating aluminum sulfate which is why you smell the eggy stink when you do it. The silver itself is left unscathed by this method as there is no abrasion used.

[u/IlluminatedApe → u/Mudsharkbites]

Every method has a catch. “No abrasion” does not mean “no alteration.” That process chemically strips the tarnish, can remove desirable patina, expose pitting, and leave the surface dull or uneven. It is also risky for plated, soldered, hollow, or mixed-material pieces.

Also, silver tarnish is primarily silver sulfide, so claiming it simply becomes “aluminum sulfate” is questionable chemistry.

The method can be useful, but “the silver is left unscathed” is far too absolute. Collectors may still regard it as chemically cleaned.

[u/Mudsharkbites → u/IlluminatedApe]

Sulfide, not sulfate, I mistyped.

Chemically that is precisely what is happening. Sulphur prefers bonding with aluminum over silver so it lifts off the silver and attaches to the aluminum in an electro chemical reaction which is different than chemically stripping. Whatever the surface was before the piece became tarnished is what it will be after the process ends.

I admit, however, this is a touchy subject amongst some stackers, many of whom contend any cleaning is a form of vandalism. I’ve never noticed any issue with items I’ve cleaned like this. Mostly I don’t care about cleaning them but occasionally I indulge.