Silverware Melt Value Calculator
What a box of inherited flatware, a tea set or a drawer of odds and ends is worth in silver. Weigh it, tell the calculator what it is marked, and it works out the melt value at the current spot price.
Silver spot price: $65.96/oz
Last updated Aug 18, 2026, 4:51 PM. The price feed has not updated recently, so treat this as indicative.
Answer the question above to enter a weight.
What solid silver is worth right now
| Standard | Fineness | Per gram | Per troy oz | Per 100 g |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sterling | 925/1000 | $1.96 | $61.01 | $196.16 |
| American coin silver | 900/1000 | $1.91 | $59.36 | $190.85 |
| Continental 800 | 800/1000 | $1.70 | $52.77 | $169.65 |
Solid silver only, at $65.96/oz. Plated pieces marked EPNS, EP, EPBM, A1 are not on this table because they have no melt value.
Marks that settle what you have
Solid silver and plate look identical, and the difference between them is the entire value of the piece. One rule covers most of it: in the United States a plated article may not lawfully be stamped sterling or coin, so if either word is on the piece, that outranks any other trade name stamped beside it.
Marks that mean solid silver
| Mark | What it means |
|---|---|
| STERLING | At least 925 parts per thousand silver. A plated piece may not carry this word. |
| STER | The abbreviation of sterling, and held to the same 925 standard. |
| 925 or .925 | The fineness written as parts per thousand. Same metal as sterling. |
| Lion passant | A walking lion in profile, struck by a British assay office. It is the traditional UK mark for sterling and it is applied only after the metal has been tested. |
| COIN or PURE COIN | American coin silver, at least 900 parts per thousand. Usually pre-1870 flatware. Like sterling, the word is reserved for solid metal. |
| 800 | Continental European silver at 800 parts per thousand, most often German or Italian. |
Marks that mean plate
None of these has a melt value. A full canteen of plated flatware holds a fraction of a gram of recoverable silver, which is why refiners will not buy it by weight.
| Mark | What it means |
|---|---|
| EPNS | Electroplated nickel silver: a microscopically thin silver skin over a copper, nickel and zinc alloy that contains no silver at all. |
| EP | Electroplated. The mark states the silver is a surface coating, not the metal. |
| EPBM | Electroplated Britannia metal, a tin alloy under the plating. |
| A1 | A plating grade, meaning a heavier deposit of silver. It is still plate. |
| Triple plate, quadruple plate | Advertising for how many passes of plating the piece was given. More plating, still no solid silver. |
| 1847 Rogers Bros | A trade name of the American electroplate industry. The 1847 is the founding year of the firm, not the year the piece was made, and the line is plate. |
| Rogers, Wm Rogers, IS, Community | Electroplate trade names. Treat any of them as plate unless the piece also carries STERLING, which outranks them. |
| Nickel silver, German silver, alpaca | Names for a copper, nickel and zinc alloy. Despite the names, there is no silver in it. |
The three standards this covers
Sterling, 925/1000
Marked: STERLING, STER, 925, .925, lion passant
The usual standard for American, British and modern European flatware and hollowware. Under the FTC jewellery guides a piece may only be called sterling if it is at least 925 parts per thousand silver, and under the National Stamping Act a plated piece may not carry the mark at all.
American coin silver, 900/1000
Marked: COIN, PURE COIN, 900
Older American flatware, roughly pre-1870, made to the fineness of United States silver coinage. The FTC guides reserve the words coin and coin silver for pieces of at least 900 parts per thousand.
Continental 800, 800/1000
Marked: 800
Common on German, Italian and other Continental European pieces. German law has set 800 parts per thousand as the lowest fineness that may be marked on silver ware since 1884, and 800 is stamped on the piece as a number.
No other fineness is offered. Continental and Scandinavian wares also turn up at 830 and 835, but every fineness added here is a default a reader might accept without checking, so the calculator only carries standards that a mark states outright.
What not to put on the scale
Some sterling pieces are mostly not silver by weight, and weighing them with everything else is the easiest way to end up with a number that is far too high.
- Knives. A sterling handle is a hollow shell filled with cement or pitch, with a stainless steel blade set into it. A set of twelve of them will throw a total out badly.
- Weighted candlesticks. Filled with plaster or cement so they stand up, and often stamped "weighted" or "reinforced" on the base.
- Weighted bowl and compote bases, salt and pepper shakers, and anything that feels much heavier than it looks.
This calculator applies no allowance for the filler in those pieces. Figures quoted for how much of a knife is really silver range from a few grams to half a troy ounce a handle and none of them traces back to a standard, so rather than pick one and dress it up as fact, the calculator leaves them out and says so. Weigh them separately and have them assessed if they matter.
Melt value is the ceiling, not the offer
The figure this calculator gives you is what the metal in your silver is worth at today's spot price. It is not what a buyer will hand you. Refiners and dealers pay under melt, because they carry the cost of refining and the price risk between buying your metal and selling the refined silver. This page does not publish an expected percentage, because the numbers quoted around the trade vary by buyer and by quantity and there is no source for one we would stand behind. Ask two or three buyers what they pay against spot, and compare.
The opposite risk is worth as much attention. A complete service in a collectable pattern can be worth well above its metal, and melting it destroys that value permanently. Identify the pattern, look at what full sets of it actually sell for, and only then decide. We do not estimate pattern values here.
Troy ounces, kitchen ounces, and a 9.7% mistake
Silver is priced per troy ounce, which is 31.1034768 grams. The ounce on a kitchen or postal scale is an avoirdupois ounce, 28.349523125 grams. A troy ounce is 9.7% heavier, so a reading of "12 oz" from a kitchen scale entered as troy ounces overstates the silver by 9.7%, and nothing on the screen would tell you. The unit picker above names all three explicitly, and defaults to grams, which is the one unit that cannot mean two things.
Have coins as well?
Silver coins are priced from their face value and their mint specification rather than from a weight on a scale, so they need the other calculator. If you have inherited a mixed box, work the flatware out here and the coins there.
Questions about scrap silver
- How do I calculate the melt value of silverware?
- Weigh the solid silver pieces, convert the weight to troy ounces, multiply by the fineness of the standard the piece is marked to, and multiply by the silver spot price. Sterling is 925 parts per thousand, so 1000 grams of sterling holds 925 grams of pure silver, which is 29.74 troy ounces. The calculator on this page does the conversion and the arithmetic for you at the current spot price.
- Is silverplate worth anything to melt?
- No. The silver on a plated piece is a coating a few microns thick over a base metal, and refiners will not buy it by weight. Marks that mean plate include EPNS, EP, EPBM, A1, triple plate, quadruple plate, and the Rogers family of trade names such as 1847 Rogers Bros and Community. Plated flatware can still be worth money as flatware, particularly a complete service in a sought-after pattern, but it has no scrap value.
- How can I tell if my silverware is sterling or plated?
- Look for a mark on the back of a handle or the underside of a base. STERLING, STER, 925, .925, COIN and a British lion passant all mean solid silver, and United States law does not allow a plated article to be stamped sterling or coin. EPNS, EP, A1 and similar marks mean plate. If there is no mark, check the wear points on fork tines and spoon bowls for copper or grey base metal showing through, and have one piece tested by a jeweller or coin dealer before you weigh anything.
- Should I include the knives when I weigh my sterling flatware?
- No. A sterling knife handle is a thin hollow shell filled with cement or pitch, and the blade is stainless steel, so most of what the scale reads is not silver. Weighted candlesticks and weighted bowl bases are filled with plaster or cement for the same reason. Set all of them aside and weigh the rest. This calculator does not apply an allowance for the filler, because there is no published standard for how much of a given piece it is, and a made-up allowance would be worse than no answer.
- What is the difference between a troy ounce and a regular ounce?
- A troy ounce is 31.1034768 grams and is the unit silver is priced in. The ounce on a kitchen or postal scale is an avoirdupois ounce, 28.349523125 grams. A troy ounce is 9.7 percent heavier, so entering a kitchen-scale reading into a troy ounce field overstates your silver by that much. Pick the unit your scale actually reads, or weigh in grams, which is never ambiguous.
- Will a dealer pay me the melt value?
- No. Refiners and dealers buy scrap silver below melt, because they carry the refining cost and the price risk between buying your metal and selling the refined silver. This page does not publish an expected percentage of melt, because the figures quoted around the trade vary by buyer and by quantity and none of them comes from a source worth citing. Ask two or three buyers what they pay against spot and compare. Melt value is the ceiling, not the offer.
- What fineness is my silverware?
- Sterling is 925 parts per thousand and covers most American, British and modern European flatware. American coin silver is 900 parts per thousand and is usually pre-1870 flatware marked COIN or PURE COIN. Continental 800 is 800 parts per thousand and is common on German and Italian pieces, stamped simply as 800. If the piece carries a number, that number is the fineness in parts per thousand.
Sources
Every fineness and every unit conversion on this page comes from one of these. Where a figure could not be sourced, it is not given.
- 16 CFR 23.5, Misrepresentation as to silver content (FTC Guides for the Jewelry, Precious Metals, and Pewter Industries)
- National Stamping Act, 15 U.S.C. 294
- NIST Handbook 44 (2023), Appendix C: General Tables of Units of Measurement
- Gesetz uber den Feingehalt der Gold- und Silberwaren (FeinGehG), paragraph 2, Germany
- UK Hallmarks, The Goldsmiths Company Assay Office London
- Silver, Materials Conservation manual, Western Australian Museum