To clean or not to clean?

Soooo, I was in the middle of polishing this silver and turquoise brooch and I thought, "Should I even be doing this?" My questions are, how does one know what items (jewelry, household items, etc) AND metals (silver, gold, etc) should be polished or shouldn't be polished? Is it worth more if I remove all the patina?

Thanks all!

 

A photograph would be helpful.

Debora

 

My question was just a general question about varying items. I've read that some items are worth more with patina and some aren't. Here's what I was in the middle of cleaning

 

ooooohhh...there are several threads here dealing with this......and many opinions on both sides...

Never polish coins !

I think if it started life gleaming , it's ok to bring it back to life...
BUT...
I like some of my silver...clean with that dull finish....not to be confused with tarnish...

your piece looks sand cast....so likely it was bright to begin with.....

 

It is a lovely piece, and yes, I would clean it. Most of what you see now is tarnish, not patina. Don't overpolish, but it does need to look like silver. Then the tarnish will be gone, but the patina will still be there.

 

Thank you so much for your wisdom! I was reading up on some of this and I couldn't get a straight answer, but it seems to be a personal preference for everything but coins?

Thank you very much! So what exactly is the difference between tarnish and patina? When I was looking it up, some articles were using the words interchangeably and then some articles made it sound like patina was tarnish that was stuck in the nooks and crannies of the said item.

 

Patina is the lovely smooth sheen you get as silver gets older. Tarnish is dirt. Tarnish can damage silver, in the long run.

Patina:



Tarnish:

 

Then there is applied patina which in most cases you do not want to remove,a couple examples.

 

Thank you both for the visuals, it makes a lot more sense now!