I have a small amount of silver. We have been very fortunate to be given a Sterling Silver cutlery setting for 12 by my In Laws for our Wedding present (which sadly hasn't been used for three years due to the ongoing renovations). One little curiosity that I bought a few years ago at the Strathalbyn Antique Fair is this little set of sandwich picks. It is hallmarked and dates from the early 1920's. I have imagined a story behind it, and thought it was probably the sort of item that was a wedding gift, with the gift giver thinking it would have been very useful for all the bridge days the bride would host.
It's a real time capsule of that period. The little flags have interchangeable Bakelite inserts with pre-printed sandwich fillings in them (and a few spare to write your own on). There are Tongue, Tomato & Cheese, Cucumber, Anchovy and Smoked Salmon, to name a few, but no chicken. My Grandmother told me that chicken was a bit of a delicacy (chickens being for laying eggs, not eating in large quantities), and so wasn't commonly eaten back then.
And here is a close up of the Victorian Silver Posy holder that I carried on my wedding day and wrote about here. It has grasshoppers and fern leaves up the side. It's very sweet. The little pin goes through the flowers to secure them.
After all those years of manual labour, I have a deep hatred for tarnished silver. There are a few things that I loath in my house. I am happy to let other things slide (such as the ironing), but a couple (unmade beds and dirty windows being two at the top of the list) I won't tolerate. Especially after I found the easy way to clean silver (I think it may have been via Martha Stewart around 15 years ago, but I'm not sure). So, I'm going to share this technique with all of you so that there can be no tarnished Silver, either Plate or Sterling around your house this Christmas.
Firstly, take a very large saucepan - the biggest and widest that you have. Get a large piece of Aluminium foil and line the inside of the pan with it. Fill the pan with water and put it on the stove to get it up to a high simmer/ low boil.
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Then, using tongs, put a few pieces of silver in, and sprinkle quite heavily some Bicarbonate of Soda into and over it. You'll see it fizz initially, then the water will clear. Leave the silver in the pan for a minute or two, then remove it and polish it up immediately with a clean tea towel (this will remove any remaining tarnish). If it's heavily tarnished, you might need to redo it, or leave it in the water for longer.
The aluminium foil and the bicarb have a chemical reaction with the tarnish on the silver, and lift it off. It leaves all the silver on the piece (unlike a traditional silver polish which will take silver with it), and is perfectly safe. When you've finished cleaning, you tip the fairly stinky tarnish water down the sink, put the aluminium foil in the recycling bin, and you're done. Chemical free and easy.
And here is the before and after: A motley collection of silver plate trays (in terrible condition), a Sterling letter opener, my match strike and the Sterling Christening Cup (Mr AV's) that we use as a pen pot and a Sterling pill container.
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| Before |
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| After - all shiny |
What can you not abide in your house?
