We need to transfer some basic knowledge about silver before discussing the right strategy to sell scrap silver. It’s crucial to understand that silver items come in different alloys, ranging from 40% to 99% purity. For example, an item made of .400 silver consists of 40% pure silver and 60% other metals, while an item made of .925 silver (also known as sterling silver) consists of 92.5% pure silver and 7.5% other metals. Most of the time, the other metal is copper. Compared to silver, copper is much cheaper and ideal for alloying with pure silver.
In the US, four silver alloys are very common: 40% pure silver, 90% pure silver, 92.5% pure silver, and 99% pure silver. The best-known example of 40% silver is Kennedy half dollar coins, minted between 1965 and 1970. Many quarter dollar coins, all Peace Dollar coins, Morgan Dollar coins, and some other Half Dollar coins have been made of 90% silver, also recognized as coin silver. Items made of 92.5% pure silver include jewelry, cutlery, and medals. Bullion coins and bars are made of 99% pure silver and are intended for investment purposes.
It makes a huge difference if you plan to sell silver made of 40%, 92.5%, or 99% purity. For instance, 99% pure silver is almost 2.5 times as valuable as 40% silver. You can now understand that your silver’s purity significantly impacts the amount of money you could potentially receive.
After learning the basics, you should be ready to sell your scrap silver. Tons of scrap silver are sitting around in the United States, and lots of it is pouring into the precious metal market every day. “I cannot believe how much scrap silver is arriving every day in our facility. You would think it would stop coming in, but it doesn’t,” said the refining department manager of one of the biggest US refineries in an interview. Many items have been made of silver over the last 200 years. Hundreds of millions of silver coins have been minted, billions of jewelry items have been manufactured, and the amount of decorative silver, from trays and cutlery to picture frames, is overwhelming. With that being said, silver is anything but rare.
What does this mean for selling? Actually, not too much since you plan to sell and not to buy. For a buyer, the amount of silver available (i.e., its scarcity) is of huge importance for getting a feel of whether the price may go up or down. For you as a seller, the current silver price is what matters.
Thus, your first step should be price research. A quick look at the silver chart is very helpful. Traded in troy ounces, the value of your items can be calculated in no time.
One troy ounce = 31.1 grams
Once you understand the math behind pricing, you need to pick a buyer to sell your scrap silver. You have the choice between selling online and selling locally. There is no general recommendation as to whether it’s better to sell online or locally. Both can be successful or total failures. The secret to getting a high price begins with understanding the value of your silver. If you know that your silver is worth one thousand dollars, selling it for $300 would be unacceptable. That’s the secret: find out how much your silver is worth, and you will be perfectly prepared for selling.
Silver-Chart.com did the work for you. We compared over 50 nationwide operating silver buyers. The highest price for scrap silver was offered by a company called reDollar. No other company offered more money for our scrap silver lot. We are not getting paid for this recommendation, nor do we collect a kickback for a click on the link to their website. We figured that there is no better way to sell scrap silver for individuals in the US.
To sell scrap silver for top dollar, using a silver calculator can be helpful. It will give you a fairly accurate idea of how much you can expect to get paid and will help the buyer provide you with proper shipping insurance.
Selling scrap silver can be fun and rewarding. There is a sizable community of gold and silver hunters who spend their time searching pawn shops, estate sales, antique malls, and thrift stores for valuables. The key to being a successful treasure hunter is having a deep understanding of the materials you’re looking for. Just because an item bears a certain marking doesn’t mean it contains the metal you seek. Fakes are everywhere, and laypeople are not always able to distinguish treasure from trash. It takes a lot of experience to make money selling scrap silver.
(Image: These items are worth a couple of hundred dollars.)
For those, who want to learn more about the simple math behind the value-calculation, please keep on reading. You already learned that different silver alloys. Sterling silver, what is the most common silver alloy, calculates like that
Weight in Ounces multiplied by 0.925 (purity) and multiplied by the current silver price = Value
800 silver, what is a more uncommon silver alloy, calculates like that
Weight in Ounces multiplied by 0.80 (purity) and multiplied by the current silver price = Value
Getting paid at least 80% of the material value for silver would indicate a fair offer. With gold, at least 90% of the material value for gold would indicate a fair offer
Unfortunately, there is a well-known silver scam common in the United States, which we would call the “silver embezzlement” scam. This occurs when a buyer tells you that the items you’re selling are merely plated and worth only a few dollars. The scammer may then “generously” offer $50 to take them off your hands. Believing the buyer, you might agree to the small sum, especially since many silver items don’t look very attractive. Once completed, you may have been scammed out of hundreds of dollars.
You can easily avoid a scam like this by learning some silver fundamentals. The simplest step is to educate yourself about markings and their meanings. Let’s help you with a quick list of “good” and “bad” markings indicating treasure or trash.
Silver markings indicating monetary value
800, 835, 900, 925, STERLING, 950, 999
Silver markings indicating no monetary value
60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 150, PLATE, COPPER, NICKEL, PLATA
| Silver | Melting Point | Copper | Manganese | Zinc | Cadmium | Tin | Antimony |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1000 | 1762 | X | X | X | X | X | X |
| 935 | 1657 | 65 | X | X | X | X | X |
| 925 | 1645 | 75 | X | X | X | X | X |
| 900 | 1607 | 100 | X | X | X | X | X |
| 835 | 1540 | 165 | X | X | X | X | X |
| 800 | 1495 | 200 | X | X | X | X | X |
| 720 | 1434 | 280 | X | X | X | X | X |
| 600 | 1504 | 400 | X | X | X | X | X |
| 800 | 1472 | 150 | X | 50 | X | X | X |
| 800 | 1645 | 50 | X | X | 150 | X | X |
| 800 | 1517 | 150 | X | X | X | 50 | X |
| 800 | 1445 | X | X | 75 | 75 | X | 50 |
| 800 | 1472 | X | 15 | 110 | 55 | X | 20 |
| 835 | 1539 | C | 16 | 86 | 43 | X | 20 |
Keep in mind that there are fakes around. Just because a marking is present doesn’t mean that the item marked is truly valuable. Counterfeits are not uncommon but also not very common. It doesn’t hurt to rather keep an item in question rather selling it off for some change.