Mandy,

As an objects and museum conservator who has treated thousands of
pieces of historic silver and metals I would recommend the following.

Silver plate can be a very sensitive surface to clean - and since the
plating is so thin, every time you polish you are wearing off the fine
silver. So I would first recommend a very gentle cleaning beofre you
even consider repolishing.

Mix up a solution of distilled water with a mild detergent.
Conservators use a nonionic detergent such as Triton XL-80N, but it is
ok for you to buy one of those non-spotting glass rinsing aidsfor
dishwashers that you find in the market. Make sure that it is
non-ionic (it should say so on the label. All you need to do is add a
few drops to the water -it doesn't take much.

Immerse the silver in the solution and gently clean the surface with
the softest sponge you can find - also have a very soft natural
bristle brush handy to gently scrub out old polish residues. Then
rinse and rinse and rinse the silver in changes of pure distilled
water. Then dry with very soft cotton cloths (non-bleached) and
further dry the surface with either a hot air dryer or even in the sun
to remove any entrapped moisture in the details of the metal.

And I am sure that you know to handle all metals while wearing gloves
to keep your fingerprints from corroding and etching the metal.

This should do it unless you have more serious tarninsh, corrosion, or
old polish accretions.

You may want to lock up the silver before the next "event".

Cheers!
Dave

David Harvey
Conservator
Los Angeles, California

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