Polishing Silver Pens

[Kalessin]

Silver polishing cloths are the way to go. A number of makers of fine silver polishing products, such as Hagerty, make them; here in the Northeast US it's also easy to find the "Cape Cod Polishing Cloth" brand. The polishing cloth itself has jeweler's rouge (a mild abrasive, as all polishes are abrasives), and will indeed remove a bit of the silver, so only polish occasionally.

 

The Mont Blanc pouch should be made of the same cloth they use to line silverware chests, and will mostly keep the pen from tarnishing over time when stored. If you can't get one from MB, it should be possible to get this sort of cloth online, and there should be some companies making pouches out of the stuff for sterling silverware.

 

Silver flatware and holloware (knives and forks, teapots and sugarbowls) have much more surface area than a pen, and it's desirable to remove as much tarnish as possible. Many fountain pens, like the Parker cisele pattern of little squares, depend on leaving a little tarnish in the grooves to really show off the silver patterning on the peaks of the surface. In the same way that it's possible to over-polish the detail on sterling for the table, you can end up over-polishing a sterling pen.

[EclecticCollector]

I have had good experiences with Sunshine polishing cloths also. The Montblanc cloth was not able to remove years of tarnish from a vermeil doue, but the Sunshine cloth got the job done. It also contains a mild abrasive so I wouldn't recommend using it too often.

[daenghafez]

Is there any means to regain the over polished gold back to its gold on a vermeil pen? I might have over polished the pen.

[jar]

Is there any means to regain the over polished gold back to its gold on a vermeil pen? I might have over polished the pen.

 

Usually not without doing a replating.

[______Zaphod_Beeblebrox]

I have Three solid Serling Silver pens and they have yet to tarnish. Of course I use mine almost daily, not sure if that's why they do not tarnish. If they do, I have the supplied polishing cloth that came with each pen.

[OngL]

Interesting. I thought the tarnishing is mostly due to contact with air or sweat from our finger.

 

There was no polishing cloth that came with my Gandhi pen, I will check if I can buy from local MB boutique

[daenghafez]

 

Usually not without doing a replating.

That's what I'm afraid to know. Thanks for your reply though..

[______Zaphod_Beeblebrox]

Sterling Silver needs hydrogen sulfide to tarnish; it does not tarnish with just oxygen.

[Chrissy]

Is there any means to regain the over polished gold back to its gold on a vermeil pen? I might have over polished the pen.

I'm afraid not. That's gold plating over metal or silver and it isn't as permanent as the silver underneath

[Chrissy]

You still need to be careful with silver polishing cloths. Never polish by pressing hard, and don't polish the hallmark.

 

A silver cloth will remove an engraving from the panel, so it will easily remove the hallmark and some surface silver

[BadHobbit]

What about using a Plastic pencil eraser! I had a parker with a Silver cap that tarnished easily, a gentle rubbing with my Staedler Mars-Plastic (white) pencil eraser. I also used smaller pieces to clean around and under the clip.

[Inked]

OK, if there is a special pouch from MB for silver, is there a special pouch for vermeil?

 

Inked

[Michigan]

I purchased my sterling 146 in 1998. The MB cloth did not work. A cloth from Tiffany & Co. has worked well for the last 15 years or so.

 

Daily use will keep it nice, but there are areas my hand does not touch apparently.

 

For a heavily tarnished pen, I would likely take it to a trustworthy jeweler. However, I just bought the MB sterling inkwell I'd been obsessing over and it was close to black with tarnish. I very lightly went over it daily or more--with low pressure on the cloth. In little time it started to clean up. Some yutz had really put some polish marks in it in the past.

 

And the grand prize for over polishing goes to a spoon made by Paul Revere on display somewhere in Boston. It had been so dutifully polished it looked a lot like a swizzlestick.

[BrandonA]

My nib Prost has always frustrated me as it never really wrote as I'd wanted it to.

 

Today I just got it back from MB after paying them to tweak the nib for me.

 

I originally bought the pen second hand so it always looked "used".

 

I am astonished at the way MB have cleaned the hole pen up. The barrel is now shinning like I imagine it did when it was first released back in the 1990s. I'd love to know how they buffed the pen up.

 

I'm hoping the pen will now become my daily writer.

[Moonshae]

Tarnish is rust. To remove it, you have to rub it away. The best approach is to use the least abrasive polish first, and to do it frequently enough that highly abrasive polishes are never needed. Once silver starts getting a yellowish cast it should be polished with a cloth. By the time it's black, you've waited too long, but you can still use a cloth. Good ones come with two, stitched down the middle. They're also typically treated with tarnish inhibitor, so it helps to prevent tarnish from forming.

[admmarcos]

That's interesting since I also have a silver pen (WE Charles Dickens) which is the cap and a ring on the body/knob.

I always used and use a polish cloth from Montblanc and the results are OK to keep it shiny. But I have to agree that due to the waved form of the cap (like a Roman column) there are some corners that is almost imposible to polish. I have not faced a problem like tarnishing yet, but if I will face it, I will bring the pen to Montblanc to fix the problem. I got this pen in 2006, so it is in my hands for 11 years, and since then I always occupied myself dedicating some minutes to a careful and atent polishing in the week-end. A very relaxing and enjoyable experience.
You can take a look on it here: https://postimg.io/image/m6hda8wjt/

Edited May 13, 2017 by admmarcos

[Bill Nick]

My nib Prost has always frustrated me as it never really wrote as I'd wanted it to.

 

Today I just got it back from MB after paying them to tweak the nib for me.

 

I originally bought the pen second hand so it always looked "used".

 

I am astonished at the way MB have cleaned the hole pen up. The barrel is now shinning like I imagine it did when it was first released back in the 1990s. I'd love to know how they buffed the pen up.

 

I'm hoping the pen will now become my daily writer.

 

Just saw this post today, did you have your pen worked on by a MB boutique or did you return it to the factory. I ask because I contacted MB recently about the procedure to return a pen to the factory and they directed me to the local MB boutique, they would not let me send it to the factory.