Scrap Silver Calculator
Byline: Reviewed by the Silver Value Chart Editorial Team · Updated September 19, 2026
| Weight | Fine silver 999 | Britannia 958 | Sterling 925 | Coin silver 900 | 800 silver 800 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 g | $21.32 | $20.45 | $19.74 | $19.21 | $17.07 |
| 25 g | $53.30 | $51.11 | $49.35 | $48.02 | $42.68 |
| 50 g | $106.60 | $102.23 | $98.71 | $96.04 | $85.37 |
| 100 g | $213.20 | $204.45 | $197.41 | $192.07 | $170.73 |
| 200 g | $426.41 | $408.91 | $394.82 | $384.15 | $341.47 |
| 500 g | $1,066.02 | $1,022.27 | $987.05 | $960.37 | $853.67 |
Quick answer
Scrap silver is priced by weight × purity × spot, then reduced by whatever the buyer deducts. At $2.13 per gram of pure silver as of September 19, 2026, sterling scrap holds $1.97 per gram of metal — and a realistic payout is 70–95% of that, depending entirely on who you sell to.
This page is about the second half of that sentence. The arithmetic is the easy part; the money is lost or kept in the process.
Step one — sort before you weigh
This is where most value is lost, before anyone has made an offer.
A mixed pile forces a buyer to price defensively. Faced with sterling, 800 silver, plated items and a few unmarked pieces jumbled together, a buyer will either quote at the lowest grade present or spend time sorting and charge for it. Either way you pay.
Sort into four piles:
- Marked solid silver, by grade — 999, 958, 925, 900, 800 kept separate.
- Unmarked but probably solid — to be tested.
- Plated — EPNS, "silver plate", A1, triple/quadruple plate. Worth essentially nothing as scrap.
- Not silver at all — "German silver", "nickel silver", "alpaca" contain no silver despite the names.
Our purity chart covers the marks; our sterling silver page covers hallmarks in depth. This page assumes you have read one of those and are now holding sorted piles.
Step two — test what is unmarked
An unmarked piece may be perfectly good silver. Antique, handmade and some American pieces were never stamped.
Magnet. Silver is not magnetic. A strong pull means ferrous base metal underneath. Rules items out, never in — many non-silver alloys are non-magnetic too. Test the body, away from steel clasps and blades.
Ice. Silver is the most thermally conductive metal there is. An ice cube on solid silver melts visibly faster than on a lookalike. Crude, non-destructive, surprisingly useful.
Sound. Solid silver struck gently rings with a long clear tone. Plate thuds.
Look for wear-through. On plated items, high points — spoon tips, handle edges, rims — wear first, revealing a dull yellowish or grey base metal beneath the bright surface. A patch of different-colored metal at a wear point is close to conclusive.
Acid test. Accurate, but it scratches the piece. Last resort for anything that might have value as an object.
XRF. Non-destructive, precise, and what any serious buyer uses. If you are selling anything substantial, ask them to test in front of you and show you the reading.
Step three — weigh properly
Use a scale reading to 0.1 g. Kitchen scales that round to 5 g are not adequate.
Weigh in grams, not ounces, and let the calculator convert. This sidesteps the troy versus avoirdupois trap that costs people roughly 10% — see silver price per ounce.
Deduct what is not silver:
- Hollow-handled knives — sterling shells filled with resin or cement around a steel blade. A 75 g knife may hold 25–30 g of silver.
- Weighted candlesticks, bowls, trophy cups — loaded bases, usually marked "weighted" or "cement filled".
- Stones, enamel, wood, felt, watch movements, spring clasps — none are silver.
Weigh these items separately and expect them quoted separately. A seller who presents gross weight on filled pieces and expects melt gets an unpleasant correction.
Step four — understand what gets deducted
Your melt figure is the metal's worth at spot. What arrives in your hand is less, because the buyer carries real costs:
- Refining loss and fees. Recovery is not 100% efficient and refiners charge to run the process.
- Assay and testing. Someone must confirm what the metal is.
- Handling and sorting, especially on mixed or small lots.
- Price risk. Between buying your metal and hedging or selling it, the price can move against them.
- Margin. They are a business.
Typical payout bands, as a share of melt:
| Buyer | Typical payout | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Refiner / major dealer | 90–95% | Usually a minimum weight; best rate at volume |
| Coin shop / jeweler | 70–90% | Often reselling to a refiner themselves |
| Pawn shop | lower, often much | Priced for redemption risk |
| Mail-in "we buy silver" | highly variable | Once posted, your leverage is gone |
Small lots fetch the worst rates, because the fixed cost of processing does not shrink with the lot. Consolidating before you sell usually beats selling piecemeal.
Step five — get more than one quote
The single highest-return action available to you.
The spread between the best and worst offer on identical material is routinely wider than a month of price movement. That means shopping the offer matters more than timing the market, for any realistic quantity of scrap.
When you call, give weight and purity and ask for a percentage of melt, not a lump sum. A buyer quoting "I'll give you $140 for the lot" is asking you to do arithmetic you have already done. A buyer quoting "88% of melt on the sterling" is telling you something you can compare.
Walk away from anyone who will not state the weight they measured, the purity they assessed, and the percentage they are paying. That is not a negotiating tactic; it is the minimum information needed to know whether an offer is fair.
Before you sell — the irreversibility check
Melting cannot be undone. Three categories routinely beat melt value, and all three get destroyed by people who only ever ran a calculator:
- Named flatware patterns from major makers, in good condition, especially complete or in the original case.
- Hallmarked British and European antique silver, where the marks date and place the piece.
- Signed designer jewelry, where maker attribution can multiply value.
If a piece is marked, matched, or unusually well made, get one opinion on it as an object before you get a quote on it as metal. The melt figure on this page is a ceiling, not an offer — and for these categories, it may not even be the right number to be looking at.
If you are buying instead
Scrap is an inefficient way to acquire silver: you pay for craftsmanship you do not want, then sell at a refining discount. Bullion carries a lower total cost of ownership. See what a realistic premium over spot looks like →
Related pages
Melt value calculator · Sterling silver price · Purity chart · Junk silver calculator · Price per gram
FAQ
Is silver-plated scrap worth anything? Effectively no. The silver layer is microns thick and recovering it costs more than it yields. No reputable buyer pays melt for plate.
Should I clean scrap silver before selling? No. Tarnish does not reduce silver content, and polishing removes a trace of metal each time. For anything with antique value, cleaning can reduce the value substantially.
Do I need to remove stones before selling? Usually not — the buyer deducts an estimate. But for anything with meaningful stones, have the piece valued as jewelry first; the setting may be worth more than the silver.
What is the minimum amount worth selling? There is no fixed threshold, but payout percentages fall sharply on small lots and some refiners set minimums. Under roughly 100 g, expect shop rates rather than refiner rates.
Can I sell scrap silver online? Yes, but the moment you post it you lose your leverage. Confirm the payout percentage, the testing method and the return policy in writing first, and photograph and weigh everything before it leaves.
Data sources: Spot price via api.gold-api.com · COMEX futures (SI=F) via Yahoo Finance. Prices are for informational purposes only and may be delayed. Figures on this page were generated . Silver is quoted in US dollars per troy ounce.