Hi Newby,
Welcome to the forum, if you have verdigris on the badges I find that a gentle rub with some WD40 will halt it and although the underlying finish may have been 'eaten' by the verdigris, the badge looks a little better. As to cleaning, it depends. I recently had a black and horrible martingale badge which looked appalling. I dipped it in silver dip and it came up as a stunner, and turned out to be a wonderful frosted silver. However, just cleaning the age old patina off old army badges can spoil their look especially if you start cleaning off bronzed finishes etc. I think the White collection was a loft find. The badges were mint, almost as good as the day they were made. I remember returning a South Irish Horse badge to another dealer as I could not live with its bright lively finish, only to be told it had come from the White collection. I wish he had told me that in the first place. Anyway, welcome to the BMBF, I look forward to seeing your album.
Cheers
Mike
The Quartermaster
www.qmsmilitaria.com