Silver Value Calculator
Sterling and fine silver at current spot.
Calculate the melt value of silver from weight, fineness and spot price, covering sterling, fine and coin silver.
Today's price per troy ounce. Any bullion site publishes it — it moves daily, so it is an input rather than a constant.
Melt value
$44.61
a buyer at 60% would offer $26.77
Silver's refining costs are largely fixed per lot and its value per gram is low, so buyers keep a much larger share than they do on gold. Offers of 50 to 70% of melt are common on small quantities.
How the Silver Value Calculator works
Silver purity is quoted in the same parts per thousand as gold, and the two standards that matter are sterling at 925 and fine at 999. Coin silver, common in older American pieces, is 900. The arithmetic is identical to gold; what differs is that silver's lower value per gram means the buyer's margin eats proportionally more of it.
Also known as: sterling silver calculator · scrap silver value calculator
How the number is derived
Identical arithmetic to gold: weight times fineness gives pure silver content, converted to troy ounces and multiplied by spot. Sterling is 925, fine silver 999, Britannia 958, and continental European standards commonly 800 or 830.
What differs is the economics of the sale. Refining costs are largely fixed per lot, and silver is worth far less per gram than gold, so those fixed costs consume a much larger fraction of the value. Buyers keep proportionally more as a result.
That is why offers of 50 to 70% of melt are normal for small quantities of silver where 85% would be normal for gold — the same absolute cost spread over a much smaller number.
A worked example
Fifty grams of sterling at $30 per troy ounce. Sterling is 92.5% silver, so 46.25 grams of pure silver, which is 1.487 troy ounces, giving $44.61 of melt.
A buyer paying 60% offers $26.77. On a piece like that, the postage and the trip usually cost more than the difference between a good offer and a poor one, which is why small quantities of silver scrap are rarely worth chasing.
Where the answer misleads
Silver plate is worth nothing as scrap. EPNS, silver plate and nickel silver all carry marks that read as silver to the unfamiliar, and none of them has recoverable metal content — the plating is microns thick and costs more to extract than it yields.
Antique and designer silver is frequently worth several times melt, and unlike gold, silver is often melted for very small sums. Hallmarked British silver, Georg Jensen, and anything with a maker's mark worth researching should be identified before it is weighed.
Finally, tarnish adds no weight worth mentioning but does hide marks. Clean enough to read the hallmark before deciding what a piece is.
Frequently asked questions
What is sterling silver worth?
92.5% of its weight in pure silver, valued at spot. A 50 gram sterling piece contains 46.25 g of silver, which is 1.487 troy ounces. Multiply that by the current spot price.
What do the numbers on silver mean?
925 is sterling, 999 is fine silver, 958 is Britannia and 800 or 830 are continental European standards. Older American pieces marked coin silver are 900. Anything marked EPNS or silver plate has no meaningful silver content.
Why do buyers pay so much less than melt for silver?
Because refining costs are largely fixed per lot, and silver is worth far less per gram than gold, so those costs are a much larger fraction of the value. Percentages of 50 to 70% of melt are common for small quantities.
Is silver plate worth anything?
As metal, essentially nothing — the plating is measured in microns and recovering it costs more than it yields. Silver plate can carry real value as antiques or as usable tableware, but not as scrap.