What a scrap silver lot is worth
This silver scrap calculator prices jewellery and hollowware by the metal inside it, not by what it used to be. A snapped chain, a fork with no mates and a perfect unmarked cuff all melt to the same silver, and all price identically per gram at the same stamp. The form does not matter. The stamp and the weight do.
Silver is $53.44 a troy ounce at the benchmark set on . A 100 gram lot of 925 sterling is $158.94 at melt. What you will be offered for it sits somewhere between $79.47 and $135.10, and which end you land on is mostly a function of lot size and which door you walk through.
Silver is a weight game in a way gold is not. A typical 14k wedding band holds more metal value than a heavy sterling bracelet. To reach serious money you need grams, which is why scrap silver is bought by the bag and why a few rings on their own are rarely worth a trip.
Sterling, coin silver, 800 and plated
Most American jewellery boxes and flatware drawers are sterling, stamped 925. Coin silver is 900 and is the old US standard. Continental pieces are often 800. Fine silver at 999 turns up as bullion and almost never as something you wear. Each of those is a different fraction of the same spot price.
| purity | stamp | per gram | per dwt | per troy oz |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| fine silver | 999 | $1.72 | $2.67 | $53.39 |
| Britannia | 958 | $1.65 | $2.56 | $51.20 |
| sterling | 925 | $1.59 | $2.47 | $49.43 |
| coin silver | 900 | $1.55 | $2.40 | $48.10 |
| European | 800 | $1.37 | $2.14 | $42.75 |
| 40% clad | 400 | $0.69 | $1.07 | $21.38 |
A 100 gram pile of coin silver is $154.64 at melt, about 2.7% less than the same weight in sterling. The same pile of 800 is $137.46. A buyer offered a mixed bag has every reason to price the whole thing at 800. Sort first.
Plated is not a fineness. EPNS, silverplate, A1 and "quadruple plate" are a few microns on a nickel or copper base. They contribute nothing at melt, and one plated spoon in a sterling bag is a gift to the buyer, who can then treat the lot as suspect. Pull them out. The hallmark guide shows the marks that actually guarantee silver.
The buyers, and what each one pays
- a pawn shop, 50% to 60% of melt: on the 100 gram sterling lot above, that is $79.47 to $95.36.
- a local jeweller, 65% to 75% of melt: on the 100 gram sterling lot above, that is $103.31 to $119.20.
- a cash-for-gold buyer, 55% to 70% of melt: on the 100 gram sterling lot above, that is $87.42 to $111.26.
- a mail-in refiner, 80% to 85% of melt: on the 100 gram sterling lot above, that is $127.15 to $135.10.
Those bands are the same published trade ranges used on the gold pages. In practice the percentage on silver runs a little worse than on gold, because the metal value per handling cost is so much lower. A pawn shop will often refuse a small sterling lot outright. A local coin shop that buys sterling by weight is usually the better first call. What buyers actually pay sets out where each band comes from.
Testing, melting and assaying cost about the same whether the batch is 100 grams or two kilos, so a small lot carries the whole fixed cost. If you have scrap in several drawers, gather it. A 500 gram bag of sterling flatware is $794.68 at melt, which is the scale at which a refiner starts to care.
Sort it, then check it is actually silver
Separate by stamp: 925, 900, 800, 999 and anything unmarked in its own pile. Weigh each pile on a scale that reads to 0.1 g. Then ask for a price per gram for each pile rather than a single number for the bag. A mixed bag priced as one lot is priced at its weakest link.
Pull out anything that might not be scrap. Complete pattern flatware, hallmarked British and European pieces, Georg Jensen, Native American work, and coins of any date. Coins have their own market and their own arithmetic: the junk silver calculator prices 90% US coin by face value, which is not how jewellery is sold.
Then look for the words weighted, loaded or reinforced. Candlesticks, trophy cups, knife handles and many salt sets are a thin sterling shell packed with pitch or plaster. The scale is lying. Weigh knife blades separately as well: they are usually stainless steel with a sterling handle, and the handle itself is often loaded. The 925 sterling silver price page walks through those constructions in more detail.
At the counter
Watch the scale, and watch the fineness they write down. Ask what percentage of melt they are paying. If the answer is a lump sum, divide it by the grams yourself before agreeing. Be sceptical of a quote per pennyweight that sounds generous: a pennyweight is 1.555 grams, and the number is inflated by more than half against a gram price for that reason alone.
The silver price per ounce is the troy-ounce benchmark behind every figure on this page. Treating that number as an ordinary kitchen-scale ounce overstates a result by 9.7%, which on a kilo of sterling is not a rounding error.
Silver scrap questions
What counts as scrap silver?
Anything sold for the metal rather than as an object: broken sterling chains, single earrings, bent rings, unmarked flatware and worn plate. Pattern services, hallmarked British silver and signed studio work are not scrap until you have checked they have no resale life as objects.
How much is scrap silver worth?
Weight times the fineness stamped on it times the silver price per gram. A hundred grams of 925 sterling is the figure in the calculator above. What you are offered is then a share of that melt value, typically 50% to 85% depending on who buys it and how large the lot is.
How does a silver scrap calculator work?
It takes the weight you enter, multiplies by the purity fraction (0.925 for sterling, 0.900 for coin silver, 0.800 for continental 800), and prices the fine silver at the current troy-ounce benchmark divided by 31.1034768. The payout bands underneath are published trade ranges, not a quote.
What is sterling silver scrap worth per gram?
Sterling is 92.5% silver, so one gram is 0.925 times the fine silver gram price. The per-gram figure for 925 is in the table on this page and updates with the benchmark. A buyer then pays a percentage of that, not the full gram price.
Will a pawn shop buy sterling silver?
Sometimes, and usually at the bottom of the range, around 50% to 60% of melt. Many pawn shops will not take a small sterling lot at all because the metal value barely covers testing. A coin shop or a refiner that buys sterling by weight is the more reliable door for anything under a few hundred grams.
Is silver plated worth anything as scrap?
No. EPNS, silverplate, and marks such as "A1" or "quadruple plate" are a few microns of silver on nickel or copper. A drawer of it may hold less metal than the cost of stripping it. Keep plated out of a sterling bag: one plated spoon can get the whole lot discounted.
How do I tell sterling from plated silver?
Look for 925, Sterling, or a lion passant. Plated pieces say EPNS, silverplate, A1 or nothing at all. A magnet test helps: sterling is not magnetic, and a plated piece on a nickel-silver base often is. Weight against size is the other tell. A "sterling" fork that feels light is usually hollow or plated.
Should I sort scrap silver by stamp before selling?
Yes. Sterling, coin silver, 800 and anything unmarked belong in separate piles. A mixed bag is priced at its weakest fineness. Weigh each pile, ask for a price per gram for each, and write the numbers down before you agree.
Are weighted candlesticks worth melting?
Usually not at the weight on the scale. Weighted, loaded or reinforced sterling is a thin silver shell filled with pitch, plaster or cement. A pair that weighs two kilos may hold two hundred grams of silver. Look for those words next to the 925 stamp and treat the scale reading as a lie until proven otherwise.
Is coin silver the same as sterling?
No. Coin silver is 900 parts per thousand, the old American standard and the fineness of pre-1965 US coinage. Sterling is 925. The difference is 2.5 percentage points, which on a kilo of scrap is real money. Do not let a buyer price 925 as 900.
Where should I sell scrap silver?
A local coin shop will often take sterling by weight at a fair discount and pay same day. A mail-in refiner pays a higher percentage on a large lot and is rarely worth the postage on a few chains. For pattern flatware, try a replacement dealer before anyone who melts.
Do I need to polish scrap silver before selling?
No. Tarnish is a surface film and takes essentially no metal with it. Polishing removes a trace of silver and gains you nothing, because the buyer is melting it. Just pull off anything that is not metal: felt pads, knife blades, wooden handles.
How is scrap silver different from junk silver?
Junk silver is circulated US coin dated 1964 or earlier, priced by face value because every dollar of face holds the same silver. Scrap silver is jewellery and hollowware, priced by weighed grams at the stamp on each piece. Use the junk silver calculator for coins and this page for everything else.
What does 800 mean on silver?
Eight hundred parts silver per thousand, the common continental European standard. It turns up on German and Italian flatware and is worth 80% of the fine silver gram price. It is not sterling, and mixing it into a 925 bag will get the 925 priced down.
Is it worth selling a small amount of scrap silver?
A few rings is usually not. The melt value is real but small, and the fixed cost of testing eats most of it. Save it with the rest of the lot, or accept the low end of the pawn-shop band knowingly. A few hundred grams of mixed sterling starts to be a conversation.