What's the best silver polish?

Simichrome, available as a paste in a tube from the hardware store.

Your best bet is the home remedy of aluminum foil and baking soda. Cheap and doesn't wear out the silver item.

Try white toothpaste...it cheaper and less toxic than commmercial polishes. Plus it makes polishing silver a truly minty experience.

My favorite is Wright's Silver Cream. It's something like saddle soap for silver; you make a lather with the stuff using the included sponge. It does not appear to be at all abrasive.

Think about this logically, a dip is a non-nonabrasive. You're submerging a piece of silver in a liquid that will cause the corrosion to react, but not the silver. How is it going to wear away at the fine details? You may be transferring molecules away, but that's going to do a lot less damage over time than, say, a polish. Polishes are abrasives and will take away more material than the molecule or two of a dip. For silver and the like, I like the dips. The aluminum trick mentioned above sounds great, though.

My family has always been a big fan of Tarn-X Silver Polish from Jelmar. They also make an excellent tarnish remover for the times when a simple gentle polish won't do the trick.

http://www.jelmar.com/TarnXsilver.htm

As You Like It Silver Shop in New Orleans has their own stuff -- a pink goop in a white jar you can buy for 7 bucks. It's a lot of goop, works better than everything else I tried -- rags with chemicals in them, aluminum/baking soda, etc.

http://asyoulikeitsilvershop.com

why didn't our chemistry teacher teach us that aluminum and baking soda trick in school? did she even know? our chem teacher, though tough on us, was considered one of the coolest teachers in our school, but as for practical knowledge from that subject apart from "don't put acidic foodstuff into old aluminum pots" and the formula of hangover (which is kinda cool, but what are you going to do with that litlle tidbit in your life) nothing really useful for the not so chemically inclined.

i just cleaned a quite darkened chain and pendant and they're so shiny now!