Silver Calculator

Silver melt value is the intrinsic worth of the pure silver content in any item — flatware, jewelry, coins, bars, or industrial scrap. The calculation is straightforward: weigh the item, determine its purity (fineness), convert the pure silver weight to troy ounces, and multiply by the current silver spot price. This calculator handles all of that instantly.

For example, if you have a sterling silver tray that weighs 500 grams, the pure silver content is 500 × 0.925 = 462.5 grams. Converting to troy ounces: 462.5 ÷ 31.1035 = 14.87 oz t. At today's spot price of — per troy ounce, the melt value is approximately —. That's the baseline — what the raw silver is worth before any craftsmanship or antique premium.

Silver Calculator by Purity

Silver comes in several common purities depending on the item. Sterling silver dominates jewelry and flatware. Coin silver shows up in pre-1965 US coins. Fine silver is used in bullion bars and rounds. Use the silver calculator above with the purity selector, or reference per-purity details below. Per-gram prices update automatically with live spot prices.

Sterling Silver Calculator: Price Per Gram

Sterling silver is 92.5% pure silver, stamped "925," "STERLING," "STER," or ".925." The sterling silver price per gram is — at today's spot price. Sterling is the standard for fine jewelry, flatware, tea sets, hollowware, and most decorative silver objects sold in the US, UK, and Europe. If you found old silver in a drawer or inherited a flatware set, it's almost certainly sterling.

Coin Silver Calculator: Price Per Gram

Coin silver is 90% pure silver, the standard for US dimes, quarters, and half dollars minted before 1965. The coin silver price per gram is — at today's spot price. A single 1964 Washington quarter contains about 5.62 grams of pure silver. Bags of pre-1965 US coins, called "junk silver," trade as their own market rather than as scrap, because the coins are easy to verify, hard to counterfeit, and divisible.

Fine Silver Calculator: Price Per Gram (.999)

Fine silver is 99.9% pure silver, also called .999 silver. The fine silver price per gram is — at today's spot price. American Silver Eagles, silver bars, and most modern bullion rounds are .999. Some Canadian Silver Maple Leafs and other modern bullion coins are .9999 ("four nines fine"), which carries an even smaller alloy fraction but at the gram level the price difference is negligible.

Britannia Silver Calculator: Price Per Gram (.958)

Britannia silver is 95.84% pure silver, used in British coinage and some modern bullion. The Britannia silver price per gram is — at today's spot price. Modern UK Silver Britannia coins are minted in .999 fine silver since 2013, but older Britannia hallmarks indicate the 95.84% standard.

800 Silver Calculator: Price Per Gram

800 silver is 80% pure silver, common in German, Italian, and other continental European jewelry and flatware. The 800 silver price per gram is — at today's spot price. Look for the "800" stamp on older European pieces. Not technically "silver" under US standards but still has melt value.

Other silver purities show up in international markets. 950 silver (95% pure) is sometimes called "Mexican silver" and used in fine Mexican jewelry. 835 silver (83.5%) appears in older European pieces. Some coins like the Kennedy half dollar from 1965–1970 are 40% silver. The silver calculator above handles all of these purities plus a custom option for unusual alloys.

Silver Price Per Gram, Pennyweight, and Troy Ounce

Silver trades in three weight units depending on context. Per gram is the most common reference for scrap silver and jewelry sellers. Per pennyweight (dwt) is used by some jewelers and refiners. Per troy ounce is the global spot price quoted on COMEX and used for bullion. The price table above shows all three for every purity. Use the silver calculator at the top of the page to convert your weight to any unit and apply the purity automatically.

Silver Price Per Pennyweight (DWT)

A pennyweight is 1.555 grams, or 1/20 of a troy ounce. At today's spot price, fine .999 silver is worth — per pennyweight, and sterling silver is worth — per pennyweight. Pennyweight is more common in gold transactions than silver, but some refiners and pawn shops still quote silver in dwt.

Common Sterling Silver Items Worth Checking

Many households have sterling silver items they don't realize are valuable: flatware sets (forks, knives, spoons), serving trays and platters, candlesticks, picture frames, baby cups and rattles, jewelry (chains, bracelets, rings), cigarette cases, and tea services. Check the bottom or back for "Sterling" or "925" marks. Even damaged or tarnished pieces have full melt value — dealers don't care about appearance when buying for melt.

What Dealers Pay for Scrap Silver

No dealer pays 100% of melt. Everyone between you and a refinery has costs: testing, refining, shipping, insurance, and their own margin. Even the strongest buyers in this trade pay around 70–80% of melt on sterling, and it falls off quickly from there. Anything that resells without being refined does better, closer to 90%.

Why Quantity Matters More With Silver

Silver has a problem gold does not. It is worth a small fraction of gold per gram, but the work of testing a lot, packing it, insuring it, shipping it, and refining it does not shrink to match. A buyer handling a 40-gram gold chain and a 40-gram silver chain does roughly the same amount of work for wildly different amounts of metal value.

That is why silver percentages are more sensitive to lot size than gold percentages, and why a single sterling ring is close to worthless as a scrap transaction no matter what the melt figure says. A tarnished flatware set in a drawer is a different story: a full service can run well over a kilogram, and at that weight the fixed costs stop mattering. If you are weighing one small piece, the honest answer is that no buyer wants that call, including ours.

Junk Silver Is Not Scrap, and It Pays Better

Pre-1965 US dimes, quarters, half dollars, and dollars are 90% silver, and they are the one thing on this page that does not get treated as scrap. The coins are easy to recognize, hard to counterfeit, and divisible, so they change hands between buyers and stackers exactly as they are. Nobody melts them.

That is worth money to you, and the reason is boring rather than sentimental. A buyer who does not have to run your metal through a furnace has not paid for a furnace, an assay, or the loss along the way, so they can hand more of the melt value back and still make their margin. It is the same reason a .999 bar pays better than a bent fork. Expect junk silver to earn closer to 90% of melt where sterling flatware earns closer to 80%. The coins are not rarer or purer. They are just cheaper to handle.

Two markets want your pre-1965 coins, and it is worth asking both. Coin dealers work that market daily. Metal buyers who price junk silver as bullion rather than as scrap will quote it properly too. Use the coin table above for the exact silver content, or our US silver coin melt values page for a full breakdown by type, then compare what each side offers against that figure.

What Different Buyers Pay

The biggest factor in what you walk away with is which door you walk through. It comes down to each buyer's business model and how far they sit from a refinery.

• Pawn shops: around 50% of melt at best, and often well below. The fastest way to turn silver into cash and the lowest price. Precious metals are a sideline next to tools and electronics, and silver is the least interesting metal on their counter. Many will decline a flatware set outright.
• Coin dealers: worth a call for pre-1965 coins. They work that market every day and price those coins as coins. Less interested in a box of tarnished flatware.
• Specialist and mail-in metal buyers: roughly 70–80% of melt on sterling, and 80 is a strong offer. Precious metals are the whole business. They refine or broker directly and carry less overhead than a storefront. This is the top of the market for ordinary scrap silver, and the good ones price junk silver and bullion higher rather than lumping everything together.
• Refiners: higher on paper, and out of reach for most sellers. They sit at the end of the chain, so nobody takes a margin ahead of them. Collecting their rate is the hard part. Most set minimum lot sizes measured in kilograms and charge assay and lot fees that barely register on a large lot and swallow a small one whole. Settlement runs weeks. A specialist buyer who aggregates lots is how an individual reaches refinery-adjacent pricing without a refinery-sized pile.

Be careful with the payout percentages published elsewhere. Most of them come from buyers describing their own generosity, which is why you will see ranges topping out at 90 or 95 for everything. Those are advertisements. On the ground, 70 to 80 is what the strong buyers actually pay for sterling.

An Advertised Percentage Is Not an Offer

You will see buyers advertising "up to 95% of melt." Read that as marketing, not as a number you are going to be paid. "Up to" describes a best case, and the best case is bullion, not the flatware in your drawer. The rate that gets advertised and the rate that gets offered are two different rates.

The pattern worth knowing: a high headline number gets you to mail the box, and the real offer arrives after your silver is already in someone else's building. At that point saying no means asking for it back and waiting, and plenty of people take the number rather than start over. This bites harder with silver than with gold, because return shipping on a heavy, low-value lot is expensive enough that walking away can genuinely cost more than accepting a bad offer. That is not an accident.

So before you ship anything, get a figure in dollars for your specific lot, in writing, based on your weight and purity. Ask what happens if you decline, who pays return shipping, and how long it takes. A buyer who will not put a number on your silver before it leaves your house has told you something useful about how the rest of it will go.

How to Identify Sterling Silver

The fastest way to identify sterling silver is to look for the hallmark stamp. US sterling silver made after 1860 is typically stamped "STERLING," "STER," "925," or ".925." UK sterling silver carries a lion passant hallmark plus an assay office mark. Older or international pieces may use different marks.

Sterling Silver Hallmarks and Markings

Common sterling silver stamps include "925" (the most universal mark), "STERLING," "STER," ".925," "S/S," and "92.5." UK silver uses date letters, town marks, and the lion passant. Continental European silver uses numerical fineness marks like "800," "830," "835," "900," "925," or "950." Mexican silver typically uses "925," "950," or "MEXICO" with a fineness number. Watch for "EP," "EPNS," "SILVERPLATE," "GERMAN SILVER," or "NICKEL SILVER" — these are NOT sterling silver and have minimal melt value.

The Magnet Test for Silver

Silver is not magnetic. Hold a strong magnet (a neodymium magnet works best) against your item. If it sticks firmly, it's not silver — it's likely stainless steel or a plated base metal. If the magnet slides off slowly, the item may be plated. If the magnet has no attraction at all, the item is likely real silver, but confirm with a hallmark check or acid test for certainty.

The Acid Test

A silver acid test kit costs $10–$20 and uses a small drop of nitric acid solution on a hidden spot of the item. Different acid concentrations indicate different purities by color reaction. Sterling silver turns the acid creamy white. Lower purity silver turns gray or brown. Non-silver metals turn green. Acid tests damage a tiny area of the item, so test on a hidden spot or on a scratch already present.

For silver coins, visit our US silver coin melt values page for a complete table with every coin type and silver content. See the current silver price per gram for each purity in the price table above, or return to the melt value calculator homepage.