Hi Suzie. I have four or five sterling (Armstrong 90) with pitting. I was in shock. I don't know there history so I don't know why they pitted; however, I do have an Armstrong Heritage (closed hole c-foot) that has two spots of pitting. I took excellent care of this flute its entire life. For the past three years I've had the "silversaver" strips in its case.

I spoke to a silversmith who said there are many reasons for pitting. Here are a few: acid rain (from using the flute in marching band), acid on peoples hands (never though of myself as be caustic but I guess there's always a first time ), then there's the air/enviroment (smog etc). I live in LA California, smog city USA. I remember not being able to see across the street because the smog was so bad when I was a kid. Maybe that's why my flute is beginning to pit.

acidic hands? ok, does anyone have pictures of what "beginning pitting" looks like?

i may have a problem.

Silver is prone to pitting overtime due to salt from sweat if not cleaned off or even chemicals used to clean it.

The only way to prevent salt corrosion to a flute is to gold plate it

On silver and salt shakers:
http://www.tabletalk.org/salt.htm

um, well... i have reason to believe that my sweat is eating away at my flute. i do have hyperhidrosis on my hands and my dermatologist said that the eating away of the wilver is very possible. but is this considered pitting? yes my flute is a solid silver flute. no, the company didnt mismark it. otherwise i will be demanding a refund.

is there any way to stop this whole eating away of my flute? i wipe down my flute a lot, but even after a practicing session, its hard to wipe it down completely because the sweat dries and its almost embedded in the flute (even with a soapy water solution or rubbing alcohol and such).

you could wear see through gloves while practicing, then you are not damaging it during practice, just make sure the gloves are breathabl or else your hands will sweat even more

like latex? uh... no thanks.

Sterling Silver is "only" 92.5% Silver, so that leaves 7.5% for something else that might be what is pitting. This is just speculation, however, as I am no expert in metallurgy.

You can always get the thing ultrasonically cleaned. It would still have tiny pits, but they wouldn't have the black areas down in the holes.

Solid silver tends to corrode in an even manner, more like rust. Just as destructive, but usually not as unsightly looking.

Galvanic corrosion could be the culprit, as said. Normally, there is the need of two differente metals, in direct contact or in electrical contact through a suitable electrolyte (for example, it could be a slightly wet inner case lining or the cleaning cloth, left wet after cleaning and stored inside the flute cas (as happens with my M3 Gemeinhardt but not with Yamaha).

But still, the second metal is needed and it could be the cleaning rod or other case metal part.

But just the presence of 2 metals is not enough, however.

To have metal ions migrate from the flute into the other metal, (thus causing the pitting on the flute), the silver should act as an anode and the other metal as cathode. This depends on the position of each metal in the Galvanic series (a list of metals according to their electrochemical activity).

Silver is a noble metal and is placed very high on the list, only lower than Graphite, Palladium, Platinum and gold (if the electrolyte is salt water, not necessarily the case in a flute...).

So it is unprobable that silver can act as the anode to suffer pitting from galvanic corrosion in the normal environment of a flute case.

But there is another phenomena, called concentration cell, where a metal can suffer galvanic corrosion against itself, provided the electrolyte varies in concentration. This could well be the cause of pitting on a silver flute.

See this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_cell

Also, normal salt (Sodium Chloride (NaCl)can corrode the typical sterling silver alloy, which is usually 92.5 silver and the rest copper or mostly copper. And human sweat contains its share of NaCl...

My guess is that it was stored in someone's garage and suffered from extreme temperature and humidity swings as a result. Was it near the ocean? That also can happen - people leave their windows open at night and everything in the house gets tarnished and rusty in short order.

I've never seen anything that is kept in the house, barring it being on a house*boat* (heh) that does that sort of thing.

This is why it's a good idea to get one of those tiny thimble sized containers of desiccant for anything that's stored in a case.