Selling Your Family Silver

A Brief Tutorial on Selling Your Family Silver:

At some point you’ve made the decision: Time to sell the family silver.

Obviously, nobody sells something that has been in their family for a long time unless they want to convert that treasure into as much spendable cash as possible as quickly as possible.

So how do you go about finding the best deal and what are the things you need to know when selling your silver?

I have worked with silver for 30 years both as a silversmith and a metals trader, so allow me to share a few things that may help you.

To begin, your silver pattern and or tea service may be beat up and scratched and still be worth thousands. Your neighbor’s may be immaculate and be worth nothing. Why is this?

The difference is one little word… “STERLING”. Around 1905 in the US, laws were passed requiring silver objects to be marked with the word “sterling” only if they were made of 92.5% pure silver. European sterling is often simply marked .925. No difference. As long as you see the word “sterling” or “.925″, you have something valuable. Occasionally one may run across silver items from Mexico stamped .900. Typically these are made from coin silver. Pieces with lower percentages of silver do exist, but are fairly rare. 90% of the time if your flatware or tea set is solid silver it’s going to be sterling.

So these are the general rules to know:

1) Sterling flatware settings marked clearly with the word “sterling” or “.925″ are typically worth several hundred to several thousand dollars.

2) Items marked “silver plate”, “silver overlay” or anything other than “sterling” or “.925″ are worth little or nothing.

3) Larger pieces like candle holders and vases often have their bases filled with cement or other filler in order to increase their weight and stability. These pieces are difficult to value without tearing them apart. If you want to sell them you must be prepared to allow the buyer to open them up and take out the filler.

4) Dinner knives nearly always have stainless steel blades and hollow cement-filled handles. Most buyers pay based on a flat 10 grams to 12 grams per knife.

5) Specifically, anything from “Rogers & Company” or anything with any Rogers name on it is worth virtually nothing. To the best of my knowledge, Rogers did not and does not make sterling silver flatware. Everything I have seen with the Rogers name on it has been plated.

6) Companies like Towle, Wallace, Tiffany, Reed & Barton, Gorham, International Silver, S. Kirk and a few others are the ones that made and sometimes still make true sterling. These are worth $$$, but again, ONLY if they are marked “sterling”. On RARE occasions one may run across a hand-made piece that has value over and above the weight of the silver. An honest buyer will alert you to these special items so you can decide whether to sell or not.

7) Be aware that you may be able to sell your sterling piece by piece on eBay or Craigslist and eventually get more money for it than by selling it all at once to a gold and silver buyer. It may take a couple of years however. This is because the market is absolutely flooded with sterling silver.

8) Websites like replacements.com may list individual pieces at 3 or 4 times their realistic value. These are retail prices and not what one would reasonably expect to get on the open market.

9) Shop around. Just because a buyer says “We pay 70% of spot on silver”, doesn’t mean they actually do. In fact, many buyers, including me, hesitate to make a flat statement like this.

The reason is, there are several factors involved in deciding what to offer for a piece, such as:

  • Are there attachements to the piece which would significantly affect the weight, like wood or ivory handles on a tea pot?
  • Is the piece a combination of silver and some other metal like gold, which might raise the value or brass which would lower it?
  • As mentioned above, is the piece weighted or does it have a lot of solder or stainless steel on it, lowering the value significantly?

An honest buyer will alert you to these factors and others which will give you the information to make a sound decision regarding the buyer’s offer.

10) We do not recommend sending your gold or silver to some non-local online gold buying service. Know your buyer.

11) Ask around. An honest, local, metals buyer with a good reputation who specializes in precious metals, coins and/or jewelry, is usually your best bet.

What makes for an HONEST metals dealer?

  • An honest metals dealer treats you with respect.
  • An honest metals dealer can save you a lot of time and effort and provide you with the cash you need immediately.
  • An honest metals dealer will always encourage you to shop around and will not pressure you in any way.
  • An honest metals dealer will gladly steer you toward a specialist if you bring in an unusual item with which they are not familiar.
  • An honest metals dealer will usually have a physical office or shop where you can meet with discretion and security in mind.
  • An honest metals dealer will NEVER insist on coming to your home. They will however be able to meet you at their bank, if an office visit is inconvenient for you.

Basically, an honest metals dealer will pay you a fair price, while still making a reasonable profit and you should feel good about the transaction to the extent that you would recommend them to friends and family.

In these trying economic times, we all need to help one another as best we can.

Please call me if you feel I can help you or if you have any questions.

I am also available to speak to your group, (family, friends, church group or whomever) about silver and gold buying, selling and investing.

At Your Service,

Jeff
Frontier Metals
302 West Hopkins
San Marcos, Texas
(512) 393-4924
[email protected]