Gaucho-Style Knife

[Lee]

The cleaning decision would depend a lot on the knife; from my impression that silver collectors like to keep items polished despite the gradual wear effect, I would say that in the case of your knife, there would be nothing wrong with an application of silver polish. I have occasionally polished the mounts on a few of my favorite gaucho knives, though others are still as I received them. (The ones I have polished are, of course, the 19th century ones I should not have polished - but they do look nice all shiny and I have only oiled the blade.)

Rick, nice straw - I, oddly, have a small silver mounted gourd which turned up in a local antique shop.