Argently Yours

           

My most treasured possession is a three inch high silver statuette of a boxer, given to me by my much-loved grandfather. It sits on my otherwise Spartan bedside table, ready to be grabbed in the event of a fire.  My Grandfather pressed it into my hand the last time I visited him in the nursing home where he passed away.  We don’t know how he had it; perhaps a former sparring partner paid a visit and returned an old gift. Grandfather was always giving things away. He boxed in the Olympics in Los Angeles in 1932 and at the infamous 1936 Olympics in Berlin. I suspect that his daughter-in-law viewed inheriting the slew of silverware that adorned my grandparents’ mantelpiece as a double-edged sword.  After witnessing my grandmother’s own hundred years’ war against the ever-advancing tarnish, my aunts knew that maintaining it was a labour of love. And that of course is the downside of silver: it tarnishes or to put it more precisely it reacts with sulphur or hydrogen sulphide to produce silver sulphide tarnish. Rubber, wool, horn, eggs and various biological processes emit sulphur. If you wish to tarnish a silver spoon very quickly, use it to eat a boiled egg while wearing rubber gloves and a woolly jumper and standing beside a fumarole or in a tannery. Beware of re-enacting Pliny the Elder’s last earthly moments during this experiment. The very cleverest amongst you will realize that wool felt in trophy cabinets and cutlery drawers will keep you busy polishing the silver and the rubber bands around the cutlery will cause severe local tarnishing. A sealed display cabinet with a sachet of activated charcoal will reduce the rate of re-tarnishing. You might also consider having your silver lacquered though this will not work for very intricate pieces and should be done by a professional conservator.  Silver on open display i.e. not in a cabinet, will become dusty quite quickly, especially if it is under lights. As dust is both acidic and damp it will cause your silver to tarnish faster.  Remove it with a rolled up lint-free cloth or very soft brush whose metal ferrule has been covered with tape.

How to clean your silver then? Jonathan Swift’s advised the following in his Directions To Servants; “When you clean your plate, leave the whiting plainly seen in all the chinks for fear your lady should believe you had not cleaned it.” Mrs. Delaney claimed this work was beneath him. First things first, remove any rings that might scratch the relatively soft silver and don a pair of rubber-free nitrile gloves. Fingerprints can permanently etch into the silver surface. Avoid pastes and wadding as these usually contain an abrasive that removes the top layer of silver along with the tarnish. So much surface decoration like monograms and gilding has been lost in this way. Simple silver dips are to be preferred, followed by an all-over wipe with a silver cloth impregnated with tarnish inhibitors. This cleaning process will release the sulphur contained in the tarnish along with its distinctive rotten-egg smell. I would advise consulting the conservation section of the V&A website for more detailed instructions.

Silver has it all, both beauty and brains, unlike lead which I’ve always considered a rather negative metal as it is dull and heavy, not to mention toxic.  Silver has anti-microbial properties and so was commonly used in toilet sets. It was applied to soldiers wounds as silver leaf in WWI. As silver halide it captures images in photography. It is a very efficient electrical conductor and makes the most sonorous musical instruments.  Howard Carter wrote of his discovery of  a silver trumpet in Tutankhamen’s 3000 year old tomb in the Valley of the Kings in 1922, ‘Beneath this unique lamp, wrapped in reeds, was a silver trumpet, which, though tarnished with age, were it blown would still fill the Valley with a resounding blast’.  It was duly blown at the rehearsals for a live radio broadcast in front of an estimated 150 million listeners worldwide and shattered to pieces around the feet of the British Hussar bandsman who had been charged with playing it. With age the silver trumpet had become as brittle as glass. The situation was not improved by the fact that King Farouk of Egypt had just come into the rehearsal room on an unexpected visit. Not a good day at the office. The moral of the story? Very old silver can be quite brittle and should be handled carefully. Always pick up a silver object by the main body and not by the handles as these may have become weakened through long years of use. Most importantly, if you’re going to blow a trumpet do try to make sure it’s your own.

© Erica Devine 2011