All that's silver was gold

December 22, 2012 4:27 PM

Home for Christmas and my mom has a jewelry question. She tried cleaning the chain of her gold necklace using silver polish, and when she did, it turned silver. Why? And can it be reversed?
posted by EmGeeJay to clothing, beauty, & fashion (5 answers total)

Was the necklace gold plated? If it was gold plated the silver polish probably ate away the gold plating, revealing the metal underneath.
posted by Justinian at 4:52 PM on December 22, 2012 [3 favorites]

You haven't given us much to go on...

Is/was the necklace gold plated, or gold filled, or solid gold? What are the markings on it? Normally a solid gold necklace will be marked 14K (or whatever) on one of the ends, possibly the clasp, etc. It can be very small.

Also, what particular polish did she use?
posted by fritley at 4:54 PM on December 22, 2012 [1 favorite]

It was "Connoisseur" brand jewelry polish. She insists that it was a solid gold necklace, but I suspect it was gold plated (given what's happened to it).
posted by EmGeeJay at 5:55 PM on December 22, 2012

And can it be reversed?

You can buy a gold-plating kit for it, send it to a gold-plating shop, or pay a jeweler to gold-plate it / send it to a gold-plating shop.
posted by sebastienbailard at 8:05 PM on December 22, 2012 [1 favorite]

Jeweler here. It was gold plated. Don't use "silver polish" on anything valuable. It's abrasive.
posted by cmoj at 11:39 AM on December 23, 2012