Polishing Silver

I don't know about you, but almost all of my flatware is not actually 'silverware' - it's stainless.  Except for a few pieces that are always so tarnished that I never use them!

I have some silver polish, but it's kind of a pain to get it out and use it - so consequently I have some odd pieces of silverware that I've mostly inherited that usually look awful.  Some of them I've never actually used, but I have a nice assortment of unusual spoons, scoops, forks, etc.  But you can see that some of them are actually black with tarnish.

I had heard before of a way to clean silver by putting it in the sink with a special plate that you can buy.  It sounded possibly improbable, but simpler than silver polish if it actually worked, so I ordered the special cleaning plate and got it in the mail the other day.  The instructions seemed fairly simple. You put the plate in the sink, sprinkle some salt on it, pour some boiling water over it (to dissolve the salt) and then put the silver on the plate and add more hot water.

I did as instructed.  There were some comments about needing to do it more than once for badly tarnished silver, but for this attempt, I just left them in for a couple of minutes.  Then I washed them in soapy water with a little lemon juice added (which is supposed to retard the tarnish) - and:

I have to say I'm pretty impressed.  Those little knives were black and blue with stuff on them, so they didn't turn out pristine - but I probably waited to long to try to improve them.

I put all of the special pieces in an extra silverware box that I happened to have - which is supposed to be lined with some tarnish resistant cloth - and I cleaned the plate as instructed (with some vinegar) and put it in the box with the silver.

Now next time I entertain I'll be able to use all (or at least some) of these lovely old pieces.