Today's benchmark
Silver is $53.44 a troy ounce at the spot price of . That is fine silver, 999 parts per thousand, which is what bullion is and what almost nothing in a jewellery box is. Divided by 31.1034768 it comes to $1.72 a gram.
Sterling at 925 is $1.59 a gram, and coin silver at 900 is $1.55. The table below runs every standard against every unit people weigh in.
| purity | stamp | per gram | per troy oz | per ounce | per kilo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| fine silver | 999 | $1.72 | $53.39 | $48.66 | $1,716 |
| Britannia | 958 | $1.65 | $51.20 | $46.67 | $1,646 |
| sterling | 925 | $1.59 | $49.43 | $45.06 | $1,589 |
| coin silver | 900 | $1.55 | $48.10 | $43.84 | $1,546 |
| European | 800 | $1.37 | $42.75 | $38.97 | $1,374 |
| 40% clad | 400 | $0.69 | $21.38 | $19.48 | $687.29 |
Where the silver price has been
Silver moves further and faster than gold, which is why a melt value quoted last month is worth re-checking before you sell. The chart is the daily close over the range you pick.
LBMA benchmark closes, one point per trading day. The benchmark is set each London afternoon; a day whose fix is not in yet shows its last spot price instead.
Troy ounces, and the ounce that is not one
Every precious metal price is per troy ounce, 31.1034768 grams. The ounce on a kitchen scale is the avoirdupois ounce, 28.349523 grams. The gap is 9.7%, which means weighing a lot of silver on a kitchen scale and pricing it at the spot quote overstates the answer by nearly a tenth before anything else goes wrong. The table above gives both columns for exactly this reason, and the units page goes through it properly.
Why silver moves the way it does
Silver is both a monetary metal and an industrial one, and the two demands pull in different directions. Roughly half of annual supply goes into industry: solar cells, electrical contacts, brazing alloys, medical coatings. That makes the price more sensitive to manufacturing cycles than gold, and it is a large part of why silver is several times more volatile day to day.
Most silver is also not mined on purpose. A large share arrives as a by-product of copper, lead and zinc mining, which means supply responds to the economics of other metals rather than to the silver price itself. Production does not fall quickly when silver falls, and it does not surge when silver rises.
Bullion against scrap
A recognised one ounce coin or a stamped bar trades near spot in both directions, because a dealer can resell it without refining anything. Scrap sterling, unmarked silver and broken flatware trade well below spot, because somebody has to establish what is in them and then refine it. The metal is identical. What differs is the cost of proving it.
US 90% coinage sits in between, and has its own shorthand: dealers price it by face value rather than weight. The junk silver calculator converts a face value figure into troy ounces and dollars, including the roughly 1% the trade deducts for wear.
Silver price questions
What is the current silver price per ounce?
The figure on this page is the silver spot price per troy ounce, the market price every dealer and refiner works from. It is quoted for fine silver, 999 parts per thousand, in deliverable form.
Is the silver price per ounce a troy ounce?
Yes, always. A troy ounce is 31.1034768 grams, about 9.7% heavier than the avoirdupois ounce on a kitchen scale. Every precious metal quote you will see is per troy ounce, and reading it as a normal ounce overstates the value of your silver.
Why is the silver price so much lower than gold?
Silver is far more abundant and is mined in much greater quantity, much of it as a by-product of copper, lead and zinc mining. It is also consumed industrially in ways gold is not, in solar panels, electronics and brazing alloys.
What is the gold to silver ratio?
The gold price divided by the silver price, expressed as how many ounces of silver buy one ounce of gold. It has swung between roughly 15 and 125 over the past century, and traders watch it as a relative value signal rather than a prediction.
Will a dealer pay spot for silver?
Close to it for recognised bullion: a sealed American Silver Eagle or a stamped 100 ounce bar trades within a few percent of spot. For scrap sterling or unmarked silver the discount is much larger, because the metal has to be assayed and refined first.
Does the silver price change at weekends?
The market closes late Friday and reopens Sunday evening, so the quoted price stands still over the weekend. A Saturday visitor sees the price the market closed at on Friday.
Is silver priced the same worldwide?
The underlying benchmark is a single global number in US dollars. Local retail prices differ on currency conversion, import duty, sales tax and dealer premium, which is why a coin costs different amounts in different countries while the metal in it does not.