Is there any way to....

I find that a little baking soda and vinegar will usually clean silver tarnish - let them soak in it. I am not sure about silver lined beads, though - it might not work. But it might be worth a try.

Have you heard of those metal (zinc?) plates that you put in boiling water with washing soda crytals? The tarnish is removed via a chemical reacion.

(I've managed to forget everything I learned in chemistry, but it's something to do with redistributing electrons.)

It's non-abrasive, gets into tight spaces in the jewellery, and makes CZ come up spectacularly!

I'll give no guarantee it won't damage your beads, but it's the gentlest method I can think of.

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To clean regular silver I fill a frying pan 3/4 of the way with water, add a tablespoon of baking soda and a tablespoon of salt and throw in a pan sized piece of tin foil. Bring the water to a boil and then a simmer. Simmer the silver on top of the foil until it looks like they are coming clean and then drain. I don't know how well it would work for silverlined beads, but you can try with a small amount.

Hi Monique...

Are you referring to silver-lined seed beads? If so, my experience with getting them wet was that the silver lining eventually broke down and disappeared. Leaving me with clear/transparent seed beads.

Anna W. in Tx

Thanks for all of the suggestions. The tin foil/baking soda/salt method is definitely something to try. It might not be good on AB beads or other beads with a surface finish, but maybe it works on plain transparent ones. It certainly shouldn't hurt nylon beading thread. It amazes me that since these silver lined beads have been around for so long and get so ugly so quickly that no one has found a definitive way to deal with the problem or that the manufacturers haven't found something just as shiny but non-tarnishing to line the beads with.

Monique in TX who, at age 4, got a big trinket full of silver-lined rocailles from a gumball machine in Germany, and who has neaver been the same since.

In message , monique writes

When I have dismantled my antique find crystal necklaces I have found that the stringing threads have got very dirty also. Natural skin secretions and perfume etc. will discolour them. Shirley

Monique -- I know exactly what you speak of, and my crappy solution is this -- restring it with new beads. I do it all the time. Love silver lined seeds, but they turn goldish and it ruins the look for me.

Becki

Actually, I've decided to quit hating the tarnished beads and just enjoy/use whatever funny color they turn. One lot of silver lined yellow now reads as a funny silvery-chrome-yellow which just happened to fit *perfectly* with all the other colors in a necklace for my sister, and an old tube of silver-lined crystals is communing with some opaque black seed beads in a spiral stitch choker. They're great in there--not quite crystal, not quite silver, just smoky and antique-looking. I've got a tube of tarnished clear AB--ugly by themselves--which will be just right for an upcoming strand which has silver, teal, and iridescent abalone shell beads. If the silver falls out of all these boogers, they'll still look great where they are, too, even if it's uneven.

I might still play with "untarnishing," if only because tarnished SL bugles look mighty awful when only the ends are tarnished. I've got a few things I want to try and will let y'all know if I have any luck.

M> Monique -- I know exactly what you speak of, and my crappy solution is