Reference
The words of selling silver, in plain English
Every term this site uses to talk about identifying, valuing and selling silver, defined in one sentence you can repeat to a friend and then explained properly. These same definitions appear when you hover or tap a marked term anywhere on the site.
Purity, alloys and marks
- Britannia silver 958, Britannia standard
A higher British silver standard of 95.8 percent, above sterling.
Britannia is a silver standard purer than sterling, at 958 parts per thousand, marked with a figure of Britannia rather than the walking lion. It was once mandatory in Britain and later became optional. It turns up on some antique and specialist pieces, and because it is purer than sterling it is worth marginally more per gram as metal.
- Coin silver 900, 0.900
An older American silver standard of about 90 percent, used before sterling became normal.
Before sterling became the American standard, much United States silverware was made at roughly 90 percent purity, the same fineness as the coins it was sometimes literally melted from. Pieces may be marked COIN, COIN SILVER, PURE COIN or 900. It is solid silver and has real melt value, just slightly less per ounce than sterling.
- EPNS EP, A1
Electroplated nickel silver: a plating mark, not a silver purity mark.
EPNS stands for electroplated nickel silver, meaning a nickel-alloy base coated in a thin layer of silver. Along with EP and A1, it is one of the clearest signals that a piece is plate rather than solid silver. If you see any of these marks, the item has no melt value, however heavy or convincing it looks.
- Fine silver 999, .999, three nines
Silver at 99.9 percent purity, the form used for most modern bullion.
Fine silver is silver with almost nothing else in it, marked 999 or .999. It is what modern bullion coins and bars are made from, because bullion trades on metal content and buyers want to pay for silver rather than for an alloy. It is too soft for everyday objects, which is why tableware is sterling rather than fine.
- Hallmark hallmarks, silver marks
An official stamp certifying a piece's silver standard, and often its maker and date.
A hallmark is a set of small stamps applied to guarantee the metal. British hallmarks traditionally combine a standard mark such as the walking lion, a town mark, a date letter and a maker's mark. Other countries use their own systems. Learning to read them tells you the purity, and sometimes the age and origin, before any testing is needed. See it in use →
- Millesimal fineness fineness, parts per thousand
Purity expressed as parts of silver per thousand, such as 925 or 800.
Instead of a percentage, silver purity is often stamped as a number out of a thousand. So 925 is 92.5 percent, 800 is 80 percent, 900 is 90 percent, and 999 is 99.9 percent. Continental European silver in particular is marked this way, and the number is exactly the purity figure you plug into a melt calculation.
- Nickel silver German silver, alpaca
An alloy named for its silvery color that contains no silver at all.
Nickel silver, also sold as German silver or alpaca, is a mix of copper, nickel and zinc. It is named for its appearance, not its content, and there is no silver in it whatsoever. It is used for cutlery bases, instrument parts and costume pieces, and it is a common source of disappointment when a heavy, bright item turns out to be this.
- Patina toning
The mellow surface an old piece develops over time, often valued by collectors.
Patina, or toning on coins, is the soft surface character that silver takes on with age. To an untrained eye it can look like dirt, but on collectable pieces it is frequently the very thing a buyer is paying for. Over-cleaning strips it away permanently, which is why aggressive polishing can quietly destroy value rather than add it.
- Silver plate electroplate, plated
A thin layer of silver deposited over a base metal, with almost no melt value.
Plated items have a microscopically thin coat of silver bonded onto a base metal such as nickel, copper or steel. The silver present is measured in microns, far too little for any refiner to recover economically, so as metal it is effectively worthless. Good quality plate can still sell as second-hand tableware, which is a separate market at modest prices. See it in use →
- Sterling silver 925, .925
An alloy of 92.5 percent silver with 7.5 percent other metal, usually copper.
Pure silver is too soft for objects that get handled, so it is alloyed with a little copper for hardness. That standard alloy is sterling, and it is marked either as the word STERLING or as the number 925, meaning 92.5 parts silver per thousand. Almost all antique and modern silver flatware, hollowware and jewelry that is solid silver is sterling. See it in use →
- Tarnish
The dark film silver forms in air, chemically silver sulfide.
Tarnish is a thin layer of silver sulfide that forms as silver reacts with tiny amounts of sulfur in the air. It is surface deep and does not reduce the silver content of a piece. For scrap it is irrelevant; for collectable items, gentle is always safer than aggressive, and coins should never be cleaned to remove it.
Value and the market
- Assay assaying
The test that determines the actual purity of a metal sample.
To assay silver is to measure precisely how much silver it contains. Historically this meant a chemical or fire assay that consumed a small sample; today an XRF analyzer can read purity without damaging the piece. Where a buyer cannot rely on a hallmark, they may assay a lot, and the cost or uncertainty of doing so can come out of your price.
- Bid-ask spread spread
The gap between what a buyer pays and what they can sell for, which is their margin.
Every dealer buys below spot and sells at or above it, and the gap between the two is the spread. It covers their costs, their risk and their profit. Spreads widen when the market is volatile, because a buyer quoting today for metal arriving next week is carrying price risk in between, which is why offers get worse in turbulent weeks.
- Melt value scrap value, intrinsic value
The value of the pure silver in a piece: weight times purity times spot.
Melt value is the theoretical maximum a piece is worth as raw metal, before any buyer takes a margin. You find it by multiplying the weight in troy ounces by the purity and then by the spot price. It is arithmetic, not opinion, and once you can calculate it, any offer becomes a simple percentage of a number you already know. See it in use →
- Percentage of melt payout percentage
An offer expressed as a share of the melt value, the fairest way to compare buyers.
Buyers rarely describe an offer this way, but every scrap offer is a percentage of melt value. Divide the amount offered by your calculated melt value and you get that percentage. It turns unrelated dollar quotes into directly comparable figures, so you can see at a glance which buyer is paying more and by how much. See it in use →
- Refiner smelter
A business that melts scrap silver and purifies it back into tradeable metal.
A refiner takes in scrap silver by volume, melts it, assays it and refines it into pure bullion to sell on. Because they work at scale on thin margins, refiners and the mail-in buyers who feed them often pay the highest percentage of melt for clean sterling scrap. They have no interest in collectable value, so anything special should be identified before it reaches them. See it in use →
- Spot price spot, silver spot
The current market price for a troy ounce of silver for immediate delivery.
Spot is the live wholesale price of silver, quoted per troy ounce, and it moves throughout every trading day. It is public and free to look up. Every scrap offer you will ever receive is ultimately derived from spot, which is why knowing the current figure is the foundation of working out whether an offer is fair. See it in use →
Weight and measurement
- Gram grams, g
The metric weight unit most household scales use, easily converted to troy ounces.
Most kitchen and jewelry scales read in grams, which makes grams the safest unit for a seller to work in. To convert to the troy ounces silver is priced in, divide the gram figure by 31.1. Weighing in grams avoids the common and costly mistake of reading a weight in everyday ounces and treating it as troy ounces.
- Pennyweight dwt
An old jewelry weight equal to one twentieth of a troy ounce.
A pennyweight, abbreviated dwt, is one twentieth of a troy ounce, or about 1.555 grams. Some buyers, particularly older jewelry trade shops, still quote and pay by the pennyweight. It is a legitimate unit, but it is worth converting to troy ounces so you can compare a per-pennyweight offer against one quoted per ounce or per gram.
- Troy ounce ozt, troy oz
The unit precious metals are weighed in, equal to about 31.1 grams.
Silver is priced and traded per troy ounce everywhere in the industry, and a troy ounce is about 31.1 grams. It is heavier than the everyday avoirdupois ounce of about 28.35 grams found on kitchen scales, and confusing the two throws a valuation off by roughly ten percent. When in doubt, weigh in grams and divide by 31.1. See it in use →
- Weighted handle loaded handle, filled
A hollow silver handle filled with pitch or plaster for balance, holding little silver.
Many silver knives, and some candlesticks, have handles or bases that are hollow shells of thin silver filled with pitch, plaster or cement, often around a steel core. They feel reassuringly heavy, but most of that weight is filler and blade, not silver. Weighing weighted pieces as if they were solid is the single largest source of disappointment in mail-in valuations. See it in use →
Coins and bullion
- Bullion bullion coins, bars
Coins and bars made to be traded for their metal content at close to spot.
Bullion is silver produced specifically as an investment in metal: government coins like the American Eagle or Canadian Maple Leaf, and bars from recognized refiners. It is usually fine silver, carries a small predictable premium over spot, and is the simplest thing to sell fairly because its content is standardized and its market is deep. See it in use →
- Face value
The denomination stamped on a coin, used as the pricing unit for junk silver.
Face value is what a coin is nominally worth as money, such as ten cents on a dime. For junk silver it doubles as the trade's pricing unit: dealers quote a multiple of face value that moves with spot, because a fixed amount of face value contains a fixed amount of silver. It has nothing to do with a collectable coin's real worth. See it in use →
- Junk silver 90 percent silver, pre-65
Circulated United States coins dated 1964 or earlier, which are 90 percent silver.
Junk silver means common United States dimes, quarters and half dollars struck in 1964 and earlier, when they were 90 percent silver. The name says only that they trade on metal content rather than rarity, not that they are worthless. They are bought and sold by face value, and a dollar of face value holds roughly 0.715 troy ounces of silver. See it in use →
- Mint mark mintmark
A small letter showing which mint struck a coin, sometimes changing its value sharply.
A mint mark is a tiny letter identifying the facility that produced a coin, such as D for Denver or S for San Francisco on United States coins. The same year from a different mint can be worth very different money to collectors, and because the mark is small it is easily overlooked, which is one more reason to let a dealer check coins. See it in use →
- Numismatic value collector value
What a coin is worth to collectors, over and above its silver content.
Numismatic value is the premium a coin commands for its rarity, date, mint mark, condition or history, separate from the metal in it. When numismatic value is high, melting a coin destroys most of what it is worth. This is why coins are the category where the object most often beats the metal, and why they should be checked before selling.
- Silver dollar Morgan dollar, Peace dollar
Large 90 percent silver United States dollars, often worth well above their metal.
Morgan and Peace dollars each hold about three quarters of a troy ounce of silver, so they have a predictable melt value. But specific dates, mint marks and uncirculated examples are worth multiples of that to collectors. A scrap buyer will simply weigh them, so silver dollars should always be shown to a coin dealer before anyone puts them on a scale. See it in use →
- Silver round rounds
Privately minted bullion shaped like a coin but with no face value.
A silver round looks like a coin but is made by a private mint, carries no denomination and is not legal tender. Rounds are usually one troy ounce of fine silver and sell on metal content like small bars. The distinction matters only so you do not hunt for scarce dates or mint marks on something manufactured purely as bullion.
Buyers and selling
- Mail-in buyer mail-in, postal buyer
A buyer you send silver to by post, who values it and pays remotely.
Mail-in buyers accept silver by insured post, weigh and assess it, and pay by check or transfer. Feeding refiners at volume, the good ones often pay a high percentage of melt. The risks are all in transit and trust: confirm what insurance covers before posting, and confirm that a declined lot is returned promptly, insured and at the buyer's expense. See it in use →
- Pawnbroker pawn shop
A local shop offering immediate cash, usually at a lower percentage of melt.
A pawnbroker will buy silver on the spot for cash, which is their advantage: speed and no posting. The trade-off is that they typically pay a lower percentage of melt than a high-volume refiner, because their costs and risks are different. Knowing your melt value before you walk in is what lets you judge whether their convenience is worth the gap. See it in use →
- Quote lock price lock, expiring quote
A price a buyer commits to for a stated window, distinct from a pressure tactic.
A genuine quote lock fixes a price for a defined period so both sides are protected while metal is in transit, and it has a real, reasonable window. Be wary of its imitation: a quote that expires in an hour, paired with claims the market is about to move, is manufactured urgency designed to stop you comparing. Real locks do not come with a countdown and a salesperson.
Identifying and testing
- Acid test acid testing
A chemical test that confirms silver purity by how a drop of acid reacts.
An acid test uses graded testing acids that change color differently on silver of different purities and on base metal. Kits are inexpensive and settle questions a mark and the simple home tests leave open. It marks the piece slightly, so it is used on scrap and in an inconspicuous spot, never on something potentially collectable. See it in use →
- Ice test
Silver conducts heat so well that an ice cube melts noticeably faster on it.
Silver has the highest thermal conductivity of any metal, so an ice cube placed on a genuine silver surface melts visibly faster than one placed on plate or base metal of similar size. It is not a purity measurement, but as a free kitchen-table check alongside the magnet and the scale, it is a surprisingly good indicator. See it in use →
- Magnet test
A first-pass check: silver is not meaningfully magnetic, so a strong pull means base metal.
Silver is essentially non-magnetic, so a strong magnet that grabs an item tells you there is magnetic base metal inside, such as a steel core under plating. A magnet cannot prove a piece is silver, because many base metals are also non-magnetic, but it is a quick, free way to rule out obvious fakes and weighted or plated pieces. See it in use →
- XRF analyzer X-ray fluorescence, XRF
A handheld device that reads a metal's purity without damaging it.
An XRF analyzer bounces X-rays off a piece and reads the composition from the response, giving a purity figure in seconds without cutting or marking anything. Serious buyers use them to verify lots. As a seller you will not own one, but knowing they exist explains how a reputable buyer can confirm purity precisely and why vagueness about purity is a choice, not a limitation.
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