I have a 20 year old collection of sterling silver tableware including flatware, cups, plates, trays, candlesticks, vases — anything you can imagine, all stripped & cleaned. I have about 1050 troy ounces of items and want to know the best place to sell silver. Thanks from Betty in Richmond, Virginia

Hi Betty,

That sounds like quite a collection of sterling silver you have! With so many pieces, it will be important to consider your options.

If you do not want to deal with the hassle of separating and selling in groups or piece by piece, you could send it all in to a refinery like us. We will run analytical testing on your materials and send back pieces if we find they are not sterling.  Assuming all of the pieces were .925 sterling silver is typically .925 silver and using a spot price of silver at $18 per troy ounce, your 1050 troy ounces would have a market value of approximately  $17,500. However, items such as candlesticks and knife handles are often weighted with other materials that contribute to the weight of the item, but contain no silver.  As such, this estimate is probably a best case scenario.

You should also consider that a silver refiner only pays on the silver content in items.  Refiners do not consider the collection value, condition or design.  Therefore, you’ll need to consider if the market value of an item is going to be more than its melt value and whether it is worth the time and effort to try to find a buyer for the item.

Here are some tips that we recommend for people with large collections of sterling silver tableware:

1. Separate all the pieces that are marked sterling silver from the pieces that are not marked. For the items that are not marked, you may want to do a few tests on those to find if they are in fact sterling. A magnet test is the easiest, if any of your unmarked pieces stick to a magnet they are not sterling.
2. Determine if some of your pieces could be weighted with another material. Wax, cement or lead is often added to items such as candlesticks to help stabilize the items. As a result, they are not 100% sterling silver materials. Other weighted items include candelabras and salt and pepper shakers. Also, many knife blades are stainless steel as sterling silver is too soft to function as a cutting device. Here is a silver refining video where you can see a candlestick and knife taken apart to expose filled and hollow centers.  To reduce shipping costs, it is ideal to try to remove the weighting materials if you know you are going to send the item in to be melted.
3. If you know that any of your pieces are antiques and in good condition, they could have collection value that is more than the silver content value. You may find that you can make more on these items by selling them on eBay, Craigslist or even to a local jeweler or antique shop.

Unmatched collections, broken pieces and outdated styles of sterling silver are typically ideal for refining as they have very little market value. Many people also send items in great condition to us simply because they don’t want to deal with the hassles of trying to sell the items themselves.  We typically pay 75% of the fine silver value by weight and welcome you to use our free silver value calculator to help guide you in your decision making.

Good luck with your collection and let us know if you need any more refining information.

Hi, I have approximately 7.8 lbs of silver sludge from black and white film development in a plastic bottle. Can this be refined? If so, how much is it worth? From Kent in St. Louis, Missouri

Hi Kent,

Thanks for your question. Silver sludge generated during film development can be refined and Arch Enterprises does process this type of material regularly. We normally recommend a minimum of at least 5 pounds of the sludge material to justify the freight and refining costs so you should be in luck … especially since you are located near our refining facility.

The value of the silver sludge will depend on how much silver is available to refine. Photographic sludge often contains about 60 to 80 percent silver, but we can determine a more accurate percentage when we get it in our lab and run analytical tests.

We have more information about refining industrial precious metal on our website.

I have sterling silver sheets, wire, and scrap from when I took a jewelry class in the early 1990s. It’s approximately 13.5 standard ounces. What is this worth melted down? From Deanna in Destin, Florida

Hi Deanna,

Silver used in jewelry making such as wire, sheet and clasps is typically 925 sterling silver so it probably contains 92.5% silver.  Unfortunately, components and scraps are often not marked so we would need to run analytical tests to determine the exact percentage of silver in your items.   For evaluation purposes, let’s assume all of the material is sterling silver.

Given this, you can use our silver value calculator, plug in the market price of silver, and calculate its value.   *Today the price of silver is $18.35 USD per troy ounce. Note that standard ounces or avoirdupois ounces are different than troy ounces (1 troy ounce = 1.09714 avoirdupois ounces). Below is a screenshot of the calculator showing the steps you would go through to find the market value of 13.5 avoirdupois ounces of 925 silver.

Based on these figures, the market value of your silver is $208.85.  Of course, the calculated value provides market indications of what your silver is worth if it were in an investment grade form.   As a refiner, we will need to refine the silver, put it into sellable form, and execute the transaction with a buyer.  As such, we typically pay 75% of 925 sterling silver value by weight.

Note: The price of silver changes daily. The given price may not reflect the current price of silver.

Hi, I wish to sell some pre-1964 silver coins with a face value of $153.50. Can you give me a feel for how much these are worth and where I can sell them? – Thanks. From Jon in Ottumwa, Iowa

Hi Jon,

Thanks for your question. Not all US coins minted 1964 and before contain the same amount of silver. Dimes, quarters, half dollars and nickels all vary in the amount of silver they contain. So just giving the face value of your silver coins is not enough information to return an accurate estimate about how much the silver in your coins is worth, but I can try to provide you some information that may help.

To give you an idea for their value here is a list of some common pre-1964 coins with their silver content:

(1942-1945) Silver War Nickel 0.0563 Standard Ounces of Silver in Mint Condition

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(1916-1945) Mercury Dime 0.0723 Standard Ounces of Silver in Mint Condition

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(1932-1964) Washington Quarter 0.1808 Standard Ounces of Silver in Mint Condition

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(1964) Kennedy Half Dollar 0.1479 Standard Ounces of Silver in Mint Condition

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(1878-1921) Morgan Dollar 0.7735 Standard Ounces of Silver in Mint Condition

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So as you can tell, the amount of silver in each of these coins is different. Because of this, the value of the coin will differ. Typically we return 90% of the fine silver value in weight on US silver quarters and dimes minted before 1964. For US silver nickels minted before 1964, however, we can only return 40% of the silver value because the large amounts of copper alloy in these coins requires significantly more energy (cost) to refine.

Also keep in mind that listed above is the amount of silver for coins that are in mint condition.  The weight variance between uncirculated and excessively circulated coins can, in some cases, exceed a 10% drop in silver content.

You can visit our website for a larger list of silver coins that we can refine. Additionally we have posted other information about more specific silver coins on our blog.

About US Silver Dimes
About Silver Morgan Dollars
About Silver Washington Quarters and Half Dollars
About Silver War Nickels

I have just obtained hundreds of pieces of 12-14k gold filled jewelry. Do you think its value could be more than the postage to send it to you? Thanks. – From Jamie in Springfield, Missouri

I have some scraps of 14k/20 gold filled pins which I usually make earrings with. I thought about tossing them out, but I did some research and read that it might have value to it. Do you know if my 14k/20 gold filled pins have any value to them and will it be worth it to take these to a refinery? – From Elle in Lincoln, Wisconsin

I have two pairs of eye glasses that except for the lens are gold-filled. They are old glasses so the frame isn’t light. I am sorry I do not have a picture but am glad to post one if you do buy gold filled. Thank you for your time. – From Randy in Greensboro, North Carolina

Hi Jamie, Elle and Randy,

The term “gold filled” refers to a technique used to make items look like they are made from solid gold, but that cost substantially less.In some ways, it is similar to gold plating in that a thin layer of gold is applied to a base metal in order to achieve the gold appearance.Unlike plating, however, gold filled items typically utilize a hollow 10k or 14k gold tube that is filled with another less valuable metal such as brass and are marked with a “GF.”A similar process known as “rolled gold” or “rolled gold plate” employs the same methodology, but utilizes a sheet of thin gold laminated to the base material.

While not solid gold, gold filled and rolled gold items typically contain much more gold than the microscopic layer of gold placed on items with today’s electroplating processes.Gold filled also differs from electroplated gold and gold plate because in the US it is regulated by the Federal Trade Commission and has to contain a certain amount of gold to be marked GF. Given this, gold filled jewelry can return a value, but you typically need a fairly significant amount of material to refine to make it worthwhile.

The math in determining the value of gold filled jewelry is a little more complex than trying to determine the value of a solid gold item.Gold filled pins marked 14k/20 should indicate that the pins use 14K gold, but that only 1/20 of the items weight can be attributed to the 14K gold content.To determine the items approximate value, you should take the item’s weight and divide it by 20.You can then plug this weight into our gold value calculator to get a feel for the amount of gold in the item.Obviously, determining the weight can prove to be very challenging if the item includes other elements aside from the gold filled components.

In addition, since there is very little gold content in these items, the time and energy to refine the precious metal from the other metals is greater than with solid gold.Given this, gold filled jewelry is typically not worth very much unless you have very large quantities of it.