How to maintain Old Gold Plated Watches as New Ones

How to maintain Old Gold Plated Watches as New Ones

Gold-plated watches don’t remain beautiful as new ones, but you can still lengthen the life of your watch by keeping it clean. Cleaning watches is more important, as sweat and oils from your wrist can dull the color or even wear down the gold-plating over time. However, you must be extra careful when cleaning gold-plating, or you will expose the underlying metal. Use only gentle cleaners and soft materials, and clean carefully and gently. And avoid scrubbing the gold-plating.

Simple Instructions for cleaning 

1         Dampen one corner of a soft cloth. Rub over the gold-plating. If this step cleans your watch sufficiently and makes it sparkle, go no further. If the cleaning is not yet where you want it to be, then follow the rest of these steps, always remembering to rub very gently so that you do not remove the plating.

2        Smear a tiny drop of plain toothpaste on the cloth and gently start rubbing the inner side of the gold-plated band.

3        After finish rubbing the toothpaste all along the inside of the watch's wristband, Start on the outside of the band add a little extra toothpaste if necessary.

4        Wet a new clean cloth, and rub the toothpaste off the wristband to remove all the toothpaste.

5        Rub the swab gently over gold-plated areas around the face of the watch and dip a new cotton swab in water to clean the toothpaste off the rest of the gold-plating. Dry the watch well with a soft cloth.

Tips & Warnings

·         Regular, cheap white toothpaste works best for cleaning gold-plating. If the watch band has flexible links, use the cotton swab to clean in between these, too. If your gold-plated watch looks tarnished before you decide to clean, the finish may have already worn away. In such a case, these steps will not bring back that shiny gold appearance.

·         Don't use a gel toothpaste, and don't use an abrasive toothpaste. Choose a nonwhitening-formula toothpaste, because whitening toothpastes usually contain abrasives. Unlike solid gold, gold-plating can rub off or chip off. Don't rub too hard, and don't use abrasive cloths. Don't use too much water around the watch face, especially if the watch is not waterproof.