How To Sell Sterling Silverware

Many people want to sell sterling silverware these days and it’s no wonder with the increasing price of silver. Only a year ago in September of 2010 the price of silver was just over $17.00 per ounce and as of today it’s over $42.00 per ounce, will it keep on climbing? Who knows, but the fact is that now is a great time to think about selling sterling silverware especially if you don’t use it or you’re tired of cleaning and polishing it, a common complaint I hear from my clients.

So how does it work? Sterling silverware value it directly linked to the spot price of silver, the higher silver goes the more you can expect to get when selling your silverware. Sterling silver flatware buyers such as myself will purchase your items based on it’s weight, the price you are quoted in should be by the gram.

I’ve found that giving people real examples helps them better understand how much they can expect to get for their items, having said that let’s have a look at a typical sterling silverware pricing example…

In the picture below you will see an 8 place setting set of sterling silverware with 2 serving pieces that I have recently purchased from a client, below the picture I have detailed information on how much each item weighs and how our pricing works, have a look at the picture now and then scroll down the page for a breakdown on the sterling silverware set value.

The picture above shows an 8 place setting of International Sterling Silver. From top left to right I will break down the weights of each item and what we paid for them, there will be a special note regarding the knives below.

So, in the table above you can see exactly what we paid for each item, at the time of the pricing we were paying 68 cents per gram for sterling silver silverware. There are a few things I should mention that you should be aware of when selling your sterling silverware…

Note About Sterling Silver Knives: Sterling silver knives are not comprised completely of sterling silver, first of all, the blades are made of stainless steel as silver is not strong enough to endure the cutting and abrasive motions. Secondly the hanldes are ‘loaded’, loaded means they are filled with another material, in older sets it can be a tar type material, in newer handles it usually a cement based filler.

What this means is that the amount of sterling silver in a typical dinner knife for example is approximately 15 grams that is a sheave around the handle. Here is a picture of what a sterling silver handle looks like inside….

Sterling Silver Marks

There are a few sterling silver flatware marks that you should be aware of so you know that your items are in fact sterling silver. We require that any items we purchase have one of the following silver hallmarks: Ster, Sterling, Sterling Silver, Stg or 925 if your items do not have one of those marks they are likely silver plated and not something we would purchase.

There other silver marks and you can reach more about them on our silver hallmarks page. Click here to go from our sell sterling silverware page and go to our silver hallmarks page. Also, there is ‘800 silver’ but any 800 silver we purchase needs to have the number 800 followed by a makers mark, an example of what I mean is the mark will look something like this ‘ 800 AGJ’ or ‘ 800 CGB ‘ etc. If an item simply has the number 800 there is a good chance it is a silver plate of 800 silver over Zinc and not something we would purchase.

Silver Plated Flatware

Many of the inquiries I get turn out to be from people who think they have sterling silverware to sell but it ends up being silver plated flatware. For our purposes silver plated flatware has no value and we do not purchase it, if it is extremely old it may have some value as an antique but it has no value as far as precious metals go.

I don’t know anyone who has had any luck selling silver plated flatware, if your items don’t have one of the hallmarks listed above they are likely silver plated. Other markings that would indicate your items are sliver plated are items that have the word Brass, Copper or Lead stamped on them anywhere, any item that has EPNS or E.P.N.S stamped on it.