After watching this video…

…I wanted to try it out on my copper Embassy Pen. It’s pretty common knowledge that you can use most acidic household foods to clean copper to a certain extent, but I wanted to see how ketchup did without any abrasive agitation. I hate the way Brasso smells, but the old formula and a smooth cotton rag is hard to beat in terms of quality of polish. I just hate having to sit there and rub it. So I was hoping that ketchup would be an easy out—you know, huck copper in ketchup, wait a bit, voila.

Before pics (I did have two, but one got lost in transit, I guess):

About ten seconds after putting it into the ketchup:

As you can see, even without any agitation it gets rid of most of the tarnish pretty quick. I then threw it in the fridge overnight and cleaned it off today. Total time immersed was about 22 hours.

Worlds better, but still not as shiny as it gets with Brasso and elbow grease. I do want to mention that in person the pen looks cleaner than in the after shots. There are some splotches that got more tarnish taken off; not sure why. But, I will say this, the ketchup leaves the copper in what I affectionately call the Rose Stage of polished copper tarnish. The Rose Stage usually occurs around day two when I completely polish my copper stuff. It precedes the brownish and greenish stages of tarnish, and I think it’s a beautiful stage.

Here’s a Maratac Cu in its rosy goodness:

So, there you have it. Mine didn’t get as shiny as the light in the video, but ketchup is certainly a quick way to get much of the tarnish off, even without agitation.