Does anyone out there have any suggestions on how to protect tarnishing on silver jewelry? Am having a horrible time with tarnishing while doing shows on the coast. Is there something I can dip my jewelry in that will prevent this?
Thank you for any help.
Replies
Best advice for this is to call RIO GRANDE 1-800-545-6566. We buy ALL our Silver there & really have very little problems with our Sterling. We like the look of Argentium Silver (a bit more white look) less chance of "tarnishing" if ever, & it doesn't have the same properties in it like so much copper as Sterling. Rio can I'm sure explain it better if you ask for a TECH in that department. There is CRAP out there being sold as Sterling 92.5 & it is NOT. They have other properties in it that do NOT get clean. I was in Taxco, Mexico in the 60's where they MAKE Sterling Silver & they had beautiful styles of silver rings. I bought a dozen of them. They were BLACK after 3 weeks! I tried EVERYTHING & eventually had to toss them! IF you have a bad quality 92.5, nothing seems to help...just try polishing...I would suggest if you put Sterling in those zip locks, make sure they are 100% DRY. Good Luck!
Kathleen,
Thank you for your suggestions but all my silver comes from Rio. I make my bezels with fine silver. All my wire is argentium and my chains that I also buy from Rio are sterling. I can tell the difference of something that I just made and put out from something that was already put out at another show. This week, I'm having to polish everything. Ugh! Thanks for trying to help.
Rolande Andrews
Do you have your own well ?
I live in New Mexico in the mountains and we all have our own well here and some
got sulfer in their water...that might be the reason, if you get city water just forget what I wrote
The chemistry of tarnish on silver from brown to black is due to sulfur. It has nothing to do with the copper content of sterling, but copper is the culprit in fire scale. The brown and black tarnish is silver sulfide. Check it out with another Ph.D. for confirmation. Sulfur can be in your water as well as the atmosphere, especially in polluted air.
Interesting, Kathleen. I also went to Taxco, but in the 70's! I should look for the items I bought then. I bought a pair of earrings and a set of liqueur glasses: a glass liner inside a paper thin, pierced silver shell with a matching tray. I gave up on polishing them years ago, bagged them and put them away somewhere. The piercing / openwork made them very hard to polish. Now I wonder if they were a different alloy of silver.
It could be the issue is not "bad quality", but whatever they are alloyed with. Taxco silver could indeed be "925", but the alloying metal is just not copper, but something else. So it does not respond to the polishes we use which are made to work on silver-copper alloys. I am guessing silver dealers in Taxco know what to use on their stock.
I believe argentium silver is also 925, but it is 925 parts silver and the remaining 75 parts are argentium.
Silver could be alloyed with all sorts of things, but only certain metals would give it good working qualities. Ancient metalsmiths found out thousands of years ago that the addition of copper strengthened silver. No one alloys silver with nickel, for example: nickel would make it brittle.
Rio has a dip treatment. It's been a while since I tried it, as bagging or boxing was simpler. As I recall, you dipped, then had to dry a certain way to prevent spotting.
It will rub off with wear, so it's not a permanent solution. It was meant to deter tarnish not on pieces being worn, but on display. It's worth looking into. "Tarnish Shield", maybe?
The other solution is to switch to using argentium silver in your pieces. Argentium silver is alloyed with argentium vs. copper, as it's the copper content doing the actual tarnishing. I never made that switch because it would cost more. But a fair number of jewelers use it.
Linnea,
Thank you for your advice. I am apprehensive about using a product that might peel off or come off in various degrees that will make the piece of jewelry look awful. As far as argentium, all my wire is argentium, I make my bezels from fine silver (which should also deter tarnishing), my chains are sterling....Florida weather has really played havoc with my jewelry....ugh! Going back to New England soon so things should get better, I hope.
Ron, you can't see the treatment at all. It's not like anything peels off. I could not tell which pieces I treated and which not.
When it wears off it will eventually start tarnishing, that's all.
Call Rio and ask them about it.
https://www.riogrande.com/product/midas-tarnish-shield/335037
I have the same problem with silver buckles and buckle sets at Colorado mountain art where there are hot springs. The culprit is hydrogen sulfide (rotten egg gas) that hugs the ground overnight. In the midwest and east coast it is most likely sulfur dioxide in polluted air. I just read today that WD-40 will prevent tarnishing. I will try it this summer. A wipe down will be a lot easier that going over everything with a polishing cloth.
Thank you! I store in plastic bags and in a box. It does nothing, however, when jewelry is sitting out in the ocean air.....very challenging!
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