most commercially made mirrors, consisting of a multilayer stack of glass/ag/cu/paint, are made using a wet electroless process, aes, xps and sims have been used for compositional analysis during profiling to reach the ag/glass, ag/cu, and cu/paint interfaces as well as to analyze for impurities present in each layer of the mirror. a five-ligand coordinated tin complex is proposed as the initial configuration of tin on the glass surface prior to silver plating. this model is consistent with data from this work as well as from the literature. surface analysis results from studies of complete mirror stacks and of partially made mirrors reveal that some sensitizer and ag reducer solution components are trapped during mirror formation at the ag/glass interface and cu reducer solution components are trapped at the cu/paint interface after real-time and accelerated life testing of completed mirrors, chloride was identified in copious amounts at the cu/paint interface, and most probably originates from the paint over-layer results from samples aged for six months and one year suggest that iron from the glass segregates to the ag/glass interface, cu penetrates into the ag layer, and oxygen penetrates into the cu layer from the cu/paint interface and/or cu/air interface. emphasis in the discussion is placed upon the chemistry at the ag/glass interface and possible corrosion induced by impurities trapped at the ag/glass and cu/paint interfaces during mirror fabrication