Got family coming and drug out the good sterling flatware. The wifey wanted me to clean it (slightly tarnished). So I thought I'd share what I think is the best way to clean silver. Don't use silver polish, it removes silver! Instead put it in boiling water with as much table salt as the water will hold i.e., excess salt is sitting on the bottom. Put in a piece of aluminum and boil it for a while. The silver oxide will revert to silver and the aluminum will plate out aluminum oxide. Take out and "polish" your silver a little, if you want. Scrub the Aluminum oxide off of the sacrificial aluminum with scouring powder and use it again. Aluminum foil I don't believe will work, I think it has a coating. This works really well if you have some silver items with fine engravings as it will really get the tarnish out of the detail. Make sure it's silver, not pewter or something else.
