To stop tarnish in transit, pack each piece in its own sealed polybag or anti-tarnish bag, add silica gel to each inner pack, and keep the goods away from moisture and sulphur. Plated brass and copper react with air, humidity and sulphur compounds, and a shipment that spends weeks in heat and damp can arrive dull or spotted.
Tarnish is often blamed on plating, but poor packing is just as common a cause. Both need checking.
What causes tarnish
- Moisture, especially when goods move from humid air into cold containers or aircraft holds and back.
- Sulphur compounds from rubber bands, some papers, wool and certain foams.
- Residue from plating or cleaning left on the surface before packing.
- Pieces touching each other, which wears the coating and exposes the base metal.
- Thin plating or a missing protective lacquer.
Packing that works
- Anti-tarnish zip bags, which release a protective vapour, or plain polybags with an anti-tarnish strip.
- One piece or one set per bag, sealed with as little air as possible.
- Small silica gel sachets in each inner box or polybag group.
- Acid-free tissue or card instead of ordinary paper.
- No rubber bands. Use plastic ties or tape if items must be bundled.
- Cartons lined with a polythene sheet to keep out moisture on sea or long road legs.
Timing at the workshop
Pieces should be fully dry and cool after plating and lacquering before they are bagged. Packing them warm or damp traps moisture inside the bag. Ask the maker to pack within a set time after finishing and to store finished goods in a dry room, not on an open workshop floor.
Anti-tarnish coatings help, but they are a second line of defence. They do not save a piece packed wet.
Check on arrival
Open a few inner packs from different cartons when the goods arrive and compare them with your sealed reference sample. Early tarnish shows first on edges and around stones. If it appears, photograph it with the carton marks and raise it with the supplier at once. See common quality problems in imitation jewellery.
Ask for anti-tarnish packing to be used on samples too. A sample that arrives dull after a long courier journey can make good plating look poor, and it gives you a wrong reference for approving the bulk order.
What this means for a buyer
Write the packing method into your order so it is not left to habit. Creston & Co works for buyers only, for a fixed fee agreed in writing. We check plating and finish at Rajkot workshops, confirm anti-tarnish packing and supervise it before cartons are sealed. Start with a free sourcing review.