As you are aware, Mr.Bowen buys his pewter ware in the secondary online marketplace. Consequently, some of the pieces he buys need a good polishing. Unlike sterling silver, pewter is not so straight forward to clean. Pewter is a soft metal alloy whose primary metal is tin. It scratches easily and bends if you drop it. Most of Mr. Bowen's pewter dinner plates all have knife scratches on them. If you use too strong of an abrasive material to polish pewter, you might add additional scratches.
You might buy specialized pewter polish. A less expensive alternative would be to buy Bar Keepers Friend. It looks like a powder cleanser. However, it seems to have the right amount of abrasive material for pewter-not too little and not too much.
Since pewter is so soft, Bar Keepers Friend will clean and polish your pewter, but you may not get the level of shine you would like depending upon the surface finish that the manufacturer originally put on the pewter.
As a result, you will need to find something less abrasive to do the final polish. Mr. Bowen uses car polish for this step. If you are expecting that your pewter will polish to a high gloss and shine, you will be disappointed. However, you may find you will get a satisfactory result. The good news is that pewter doesn't tarnish like sterling. You can use soap and water to clean it and that generally is enough to maintain the surface for a long time.
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