Selling Silver: How Pricing Really Works
Silver comes over the counter in more forms than gold — flatware, coins, jewelry, trays, the odd bar — and the pricing rules change with the form. Here is how a dealer actually works out what silver is worth, so you can follow the math when you sell.
First question: sterling, coin, or plate?
Sterling is 92.5 percent silver, marked “925,” “Sterling,” or “Ster.” Most American flatware, tea services, and jewelry with real melt value is sterling. Coin silver — common in older American pieces and in US dimes, quarters, and half dollars minted before 1965 — is 90 percent. Continental pieces often run “800” or “835.” All of these are priced on their silver content.
Plate is different. Marks like “EPNS,” “silverplate,” “A1,” or “silver on copper” mean a thin electroplated layer over base metal — usually too little silver to recover economically, so plated holloware is worth what the secondhand market pays for the object, not its metal. One more trap: “weighted” sterling candlesticks and knife handles are a sterling shell over cement or steel, so the sterling math applies to a fraction of what the scale reads. A dealer who prices weighted pieces at full sterling weight is either careless or working an angle.
Hallmarks wear down and are occasionally faked, so marks are a starting point rather than a verdict. We confirm with an acid or electronic test at the counter — in front of you, like the weighing.
Melt value versus collectible value
Melt value is the floor: silver content times the day’s spot price. Plenty of silver is worth exactly that — bent spoons, single earrings, tangled chains. But some pieces carry a premium above melt, and the difference can be large. Pre-1965 US coins trade as a group at a multiple of face value that tracks spot. Better dates of Morgan and Peace dollars carry collector premiums well beyond their metal. Complete sterling flatware sets in wanted patterns sell as sets, and signed pieces — Tiffany, Georg Jensen — sell as objects, not ounces.
We check before anything is priced at melt: a coin gets looked up, a pattern gets identified, a maker’s mark gets weighed against the market for that maker. If the object is worth more than the metal, the offer reflects the object.
Silver swings harder than gold
Silver’s market is a fraction of the size of gold’s, so the same flow of money moves the price further. It also carries an industrial side gold barely has — electronics, solar, medical uses — which adds a second set of forces to the usual rates-and-dollar story. The result is a metal that routinely moves in a week what gold moves in a season, in both directions.
For a seller the lesson is the same as with gold, only more so: quotes age quickly, and the spot price on the day you sell is the one that matters. Checking it takes seconds on your phone before you come in.
The weight math, done in the open
Here is the whole calculation, using a troy ounce of 31.1 grams. Say you bring in 400 grams of sterling flatware — real sterling, no weighted pieces. Multiply by 0.925: it contains 370 grams of pure silver. Divide by 31.1: that is 11.9 troy ounces. Times the day’s spot price gives the melt value, and the offer is a stated percentage of that. Every input is visible — the scale is in front of you, the purity is on the hallmark and confirmed by the test, the spot price is on your phone. If a number ever appears that you cannot trace back through those steps, ask.
Sterling, coins, or a drawer of mixed pieces — bring it to the Costa Mesa shop, or start with the sell your gold page; the same form works for silver.