25th Anniversary Care Bear nose rust?

[Prince Firefly]

I recently came into possession of three new bears for my collection! The ever crazy-rare Pink Power, the 25th Anniversary Tenderheart, and a scented Funshine!

As many will know, the 25th Anni bears' main selling point is their Swarovski crystal eyes and sterling silver accents, which 25th Tenderheart has plenty of. But there's a problem with mine... his nose is rusted.

I only saw it today, and while it hasn't stained any of the white fur, my Tenderheart's nose is that horrible shade of rust red-orange. He's MIB, so I don't know how this could've happened.
I don't normally deal with rust. Tail rust in my personal ponies is a problem I rarely run into (being primarily a G3 collector), and when we have run into it's been minor or the ponies are in bait condition in the first place.

My question, is what on earth do I do? I thought sterling silver wasn't supposed to rust, and yet it has. How do I clean this off of Tenderheart without damaging anything else?

[Leave a Whisper]

That's crazy! Maybe its not real sterling? Hate to say it, but it sounds like you'll hafta take him out and give him a good cleaning lest it starts staining.

[Shy Violet]

Do you have photos? Is it possible it's tarnished, not rust? Silver tarnishes so you should be able to polish it easily

[Prince Firefly]

Do you have photos? Is it possible it's tarnished, not rust? Silver tarnishes so you should be able to polish it easily

Yeah, we figured after I posted this it was tarnish.
Problem is it'll just tarnish again if we do polish it...

[Loreofyore]

  I guess you could always pretend he is now some kinda feel-better care bear with a mission to help kids with head-colds if you can't fix the rusty tarnish nose? Anyway, wish ya luck.

[Shy Violet]

Do you have photos? Is it possible it's tarnished, not rust? Silver tarnishes so you should be able to polish it easily

Yeah, we figured after I posted this it was tarnish.
Problem is it'll just tarnish again if we do polish it...

Silver will always tarnish repeatedly, I have to polish my silver jewelry regularly. The more often you do it the easier it is to clean. You have nothing to lose by polishing it! It'll tarnish again eventually or it can stay tarnished now. Just keep up with polishing it and he'll look good as new all the time.