How to clean brass?

Rinse with warm water and dry thoroughly. For tougher cleaning jobs, pull out the ketchup, tomato sauce, or tomato paste. Simply rub a thin coat onto the brass, let sit for an hour or so, and then clean the piece with hot, soapy water. Another option is to make a paste of equal parts salt, flour, and white vinegar.

Ketchup or tomato paste.

Is it real brass?

If they are brass and look like real brass chances are they have a lacquer on it. The reason I say this is that brass will tarnish fairly quickly and can turn black. What keeps the brass from tarnishing so fast(and keeps it shiny and gold-ish) is the lacquer which keeps the air from tarnishing. Eventually (takes years), that brass shine will tarnish even underneath the lacquer though. The way to deal with that is stripping the lacquer... then shine up with a brass cleaner once that lacquer is off, and then re-lacquer. Sometimes something will look like it is solid brass but is actually brass plated. I think you could still try the above method though, and you will eventually figure out what metal is all the way through. In either case, you could try shining it up with a brass cleaner, if nothing happens to make them look better, you will need to strip it. That means there is lacquer that needs to be stripped to get to the brass. Then try to brass cleaner it again. (TRY BRASSO cleaner) If still nothing looks better, then the metal is probably a cheap metal that has been painted to look like brass and can just be repainted and finished off with another lacquer or polycrilic finisher.

Wright's Brass polish-follow directions

Use BRASSO to polish it!

Ketchup works for me

I've heard you can use catsup to clean brass. The vinegar in the catsup will shine it right up.