How to Maintain and Store Silver

Richard Sisson: Hi! I am Richard Sisson with Chevy Chase Plating & Polishing. We have been talking today about how to polish and maintain your silver. I would like to now discuss with you how to keep your silver looking beautiful once it's polished. Once you have a piece of silver that is polished to your satisfaction and looking pretty, if it is going to be displayed in your home, then it will be subject to tarnish, once again unfortunately. There are a couple of ways to protect that. If it's going to be used for eating on or from, you will not be able to put any protective coating on it. However, decorative silver like this piece or candle holders can be lacquer coated. We do that here at Chevy Chase Plating to protect it and in which case, you would never have to polish your silver again for 20-25 years. However, again, if your silver is going to be out and used and not lacquer coated, then you might want to consider a spray polish to maintain your silver once it's polished by a liquid or a paste polish to your satisfaction. And that's a good way to just lightly go over to your silver to keep it.

For silver that is to be contained in a cabinet or a drawer, you might want to consider silver protection strips. These are chemically treated paper strips that go into -- sit on the shelf and go into a drawer or a bag and they help retard tarnish. In addition to that, there is a material called pacific cloth and silver that needs to be stored away can be put into a storage bag such as this. And this bag is made out of, what they call, pacific cloth and it is anti-tarnish. And that will maintain your silver tarnish-free for a long time. The important thing to remember is also that you want to keep the air away from your silver. So again, silver that is being stored can be inserted into a large plastic bag. Today, at the grocery store, they sell oversize plastic baggies and if you take a piece of silver and put it in the bag for storage purposes and seal the bag, that will retard the tarnish because you are keeping the air away. So that's a little bit how to maintain your silver after it's been polished. I have enjoyed showing you these things today and good luck with your silver polishing project.