Here's a great brass pendant that came to me from the African Village at Tucson, a few weeks ago. I was told it's from Burkina Faso. It seems to represent eight snakes intertwined together.

After some consideration, I decided to give it a cleaning, to remove some of the grime. I used the lemon-&-salt method, but I was (for the first time) surprised that it didn't melt away all of the dark stuff. Not that I wanted the piece to be striped. After giving it the treatment, and a soap-&-water rinse, I then proceeded to buff it for almost an hour with a rouge cloth (rubbing the hardest on the dark areas, like the snakes' necks).

The photo shows before (the left) and after. One look is not intrinsically better than the other, but shiny brass can be very attractive. One day, it'll be tarnished again....

Jamey