Hi. About a month ago, I came here hoping someone had answered your post, because I was experiencing the same issue with my inherited sterling silverware and no other advice was available. I have now returned to post this comment of my success, in hopes of helping someone else. I had polished the silver until it was shiny and new, but the smell was terrible. I tried all the standard measures to remove it and searched for hours on the internet for a solution to the smell. After all my research, I just decided to just suck it up and tough it out. It worked. After about a week of use, I noticed that the two spoons I had used as an experiment were no longer smelly. I took the rest of the silverware out and used it daily. The smell of them gradually decreased with use. Some took longer than others because they were at the bottom of the drawer, and therefore used less often. When I couldn't suck up the smell, I just used the first spoons I had experimented with to both give myself a break, and to remind me that it was working and to be patient. I will tell you that it is worth it. I now have a drawer of heirloom sterling silver that smells as nice as it looks.

I had a ball doing this! You can still eat outside here in So. California if you can hide from the breeze, so I did an outdoor arrangement. The skeleton arm came from a mantle decoration I made two years ago after having seen it on TV. Red metal dishes are from the Pottery Barn line that's been showing up in their stores every spring. It all goes on sale when the fall stuff starts to arrive, so prices are not too bad. The white melanie plates are the old Heller dishes that came in a zillion colors in the 70s. Candle holders are milk glass goblets. NOTICE: They are at different heights. You guys taught me to do that! The close-up of the place setting looks like the plate is going to fall off the table. I must have been rearranging something and forgot to push it back. Napkins and placemats are from my New Years Eve stash. Little skeletons came from a skeleton garland I got last Halloween. Lots of them had lost a limb or two, so I just cut them up and used the good ones for napkin rings. Isn't this fun??!!!!

Ah, Sammy, you beat me to it! Jeffrey Herman is "The Man"! I know he does not recommend Goddard's Silver Foam but I do use it on lots of my silver. I did follow his recommendation and crossed the river to buy some Blitz Silver Polish. It was good, but not worth the drive. I see he is now making his own polish - might order some for special things. That boiling water/baking soda/aluminum pan method has ruined a lot of good silver. It's the oxidation that makes an elaborate design beautiful and it will remover that. And if it's silver PLATE, not STERLING, you are removing a LOT of the silver. The BEST way is to use your silver flatware daily and hand wash it. It really takes next to no time (I'm assuming you don't have a family of 12 and home-school so there are TONS of everything to be washed!). It doesn't tarnish if used. I just had my yard man at my house last week polishing all my display silver (it does tarnish sitting out, especially with a gas furnace and stove). It all is gleaming! My flatware that I use for Christmas is vermeil and gold does not tarnish, so nothing needed there! I use my other two patterns all the time, plus I do keep those 3M silver anti-tarnish strips in the silver chest where they are stored..They work!

My paternal grandmothers china was foisted on me. Its sitting in a closet in a spare bedroom,where it will remain, I hate to say it, until my father passes and I can toss it without guilt. I dont hate it,its boring. But I will never use it. I have relinquished any claim to the china,crystal or silver that my parents have and never use anymore. Our family has grown too large to have a sit down dinner with everyone anyway. My sisters want the china and silver and all that, for sentimental purposes. I only want the tacky ceramic bowl with giant blue daisies on it. But to each their own. I will say that in the past 5 years or so I have had maybe a dozen acquaintances who have gotten married. I think only one registry had china. Only one had silver. The rest just had everyday flatware and plates and drinkware and stuff. And in those cases,I dont think it was a money thing,because also on those registries were other very expensive items. More expensive than the China or silver on the other ones. I never wanted china or silver of my own. It never even occurred to me. I only want Christmas dishes and flatware. I have the dishes, (not china) and I am searching for the flatware. Maybe less people are buying such things because they are being handed them down from parents or grandparents. I have some tablecloths and cloth napkins from my maternal grandmother. I will also never use those. My mom brought them to me because they are pink. She knows I will not use them,but thought i would appreciate them, if only for the color. And I do! And not only because my grandma HATED pink and it makes me giggle to think that she bought them because pink was the "feminine" thing to have. She had good taste though, something I will never claim to have. :)