How should I store bunads silver?
It can be useful to have given some thought to how you store your bunad silver.
It’s a good idea to keep your silver and other jewelry in one place so you can find it, and it’s a good idea to store it so you don’t have to polish it as often as possible.
Isn’t it?
Storage needs of the past
From ancient times, costume silver had several functions.
Not only was it used to directly hold clothes in place, but it was also of significant symbolic and economic importance to the wearer of the silver.
At a time when the population of Norway was scattered on deserted farms miles apart, in a country without a particularly well-developed banking and police system, bunad silver could function as a kind of currency: If you had a good crop year on your farm, you could exchange the excess grain for silver, thus hedging against a future bad year – you could then simply exchange foodstuffs for the silver again.
And of course, having a lot of silver conferred a certain status – it showed that the farm was doing well.
Bunad silver was also easy to collect if you had to hurry away – in the event of fire, robbery or if you had to hurry away from the farm for other reasons.
During the day, the silver was already attached to your clothes, and at night the silver was relatively easy to collect and take with you.
In other words, silverware was of great importance both on a day-to-day, practical level, and not a little on a symbolic level: You can actually find symbolism from Christianity, from Norse mythology and all the way back to the earlier nature religions! Read more here if you are interested in the symbolism of the silverware.
In today’s Norway, the storage needs of bunad silver are probably not quite the same as they used to be, but we still want to make sure that the silver stays as nice as possible!
There are many solutions!
Today, there are several different solutions for storing bunadsilver, and it can be difficult to know which solution works best for you. The most important thing is that as little fresh air as possible circulates around the bunadsilver. Here are the most common ways of storing bunadsilver:
- regular plastic bags from the grocery store/plastic bags with zippers
- mess bags
- storage cases with spill bags inside and space for a boot belt
- decorative porcelain box with motifs from many national costumes
- larger jewelry box designed for bunad silver
But what is the best way to store bunads silver?
All these options bring the silver together in one place, so you know where you have it all (alternatively; you can’t find some of it).
Well, apart from what’s sewn onto the bunad, that is.
So the question is, what is the best way to avoidthe need for bunadsilver-polishing as much as possible?
Plastic bag
Plastic bags work fine as long as they don’t get punctured.
And as long as you not bundles it together with elastic around it. Strangely enough, there is something in the elastic that goes right through the plastic, leaving some fantastic black marks on the silver that are almost impossible to get rid of. I know, because I’ve tried. But a plastic bag without an elastic band, such as a plastic bag with a zipper, will work just fine. This is the cheapest option – and it’s relatively easy to get hold of too. The problem is, of course, that these bags are not made directly for storing bunads of silver, and it’s easy for the needles in the silver to pierce the bag. Not that this ruins the silver, but you will probably notice that it needs to be polished more often than with other storage options.
Seabag
Silver bags are really nice.
And it doesn’t matter if you put several items in the same bag.
You’re not going to shake it anyway, so there won’t be any significant scratches on the silver and the other bunad silver. Silver bags are more durable than plastic bags and will reduce the need to polish the silver.
Our silver bag is 12.5 x 16 cm.
Box
If you have more bunad silver than will fit in one of these bags, a box is probably better.
Porcelain boxes are beautiful and decorative.
They look great on display, decorated as they are with a national costume pattern.
And in such a box, there will be fewer scratches than can occur when the silver is placed in bags.
The largest models also have an inner box with three airtight levels!
Storage case
If you want to take your silver jewelry with you when you wear it at a wedding, christening, confirmation or something else, the storage case is a great solution.
It also has space for a casting belt (silver belt) and a bag with a bag lock.
When you’re going out on the road with your bunad, it’s also a good idea to have a bunad bag for the bunad itself – it needs to be taken care of, too!
But what about the silver that’s stuck to the bunad?
You can try wrapping the silver that is sewn onto the bunad in glad-pack, i.e. plastic wrap.
That helps at least a little.
Anything more is difficult to do, but fortunately this doesn’t usually apply to a lot of silver, so at least the cleaning job isn’t that big!
