925 silver pendant tarnished after less than a day?!

[JLCooper]

I recently bought a rather expensive sterling silver anchor pendant from a trusted online retailer. After wearing it out for less than a day, I took it off in the evening to find that the back was suddenly quite badly tarnished which it definitely wasn't when I first put it on that morning.

I have been assured by both the shop and a professional jeweller that the metal is 100% what it says it is, so it doesn't seem to be a matter or being misled.

On top of this, I looked up solutions to cleaning tarnished silver online and found several pages discussing a recipe for a homemade silver dip using baking soda, tin foil, salt and hot water. I tried this and it only seemed to have made it worse!

Just looking to see if anyone has any suggestions on both what could have caused it and how to get it looking like new again (minus tarnish!).

[DTCwordfan]

the tarnishing is most worrisome as a >90% silver shouldnt tarnish that easily except for sitting in the middle of a car wash or your washing machine.

[JLCooper]

Ah I may be able to answer that, the piece is from overseas, Australia/New Zealand to be exact. Not too clued up on the whole hallmark thing but is this maybe why the marking may be different to silver from the UK?

[JLCooper]

Also, I'm not sure if this will help, but here's the link to the product on the retailers website: http://www.meadowlark...hor+Pendant&x=98&y=86

[scotman]

The problem with foreign 'marking' is that it is usually done by the manufacturer. There is no independent verification of the grade of metal used.
When you had it checked did the places you went to do a full assay on it?

You can get kit to test it yourself. I don't know the cost but it would probably be cheaper and more certain to get a jeweller to do it.

http://www.quicktest.co.uk/goldtesting.htm