Is It Worth Selling Silver Jewellery? What to Expect

Silver often sits quietly in jewellery boxes and cutlery drawers, overlooked in favour of gold. While silver's price per gram is much lower than gold's, it's still worth understanding what drives its value if you're considering selling.

Sterling silver vs silver-plated

The single biggest factor in whether silver jewellery or homeware has meaningful scrap value is whether it's solid sterling silver (hallmarked 925) or merely silver-plated (a thin silver layer over a base metal, often marked EPNS or similar). Silver-plated items generally have negligible precious-metal value, while sterling silver is priced on its actual silver content, just like gold.

Where sterling silver commonly turns up

• Jewellery: rings, bracelets, chains and earrings marked 925 or 800.
• Flatware and cutlery sets, often with hallmarks on the underside or handle.
• Hip flasks, cigarette cases and other vintage silverware.
• Coins minted before decimalisation-era debasement (pre-1920 UK coins were often struck in higher-silver-content alloys).

How silver is priced

Exactly like gold, sterling silver items are weighed and their purity confirmed, then priced against the day's silver spot rate. Because silver's per-gram value is a fraction of gold's, larger or heavier items (flatware sets, for example) tend to be more worthwhile to bring in than small, lightweight jewellery pieces - though we're happy to assess anything, however small.

A quick way to check at home

A simple magnet test can rule out silver-plated base metals that are magnetic (genuine silver is not magnetic), though this isn't foolproof, since some plated items use non-magnetic base metals too. The most reliable way to know for certain is a professional test, which we're happy to do free of charge and with no obligation to sell.

Should you bother?

If you have a genuine sterling silver collection gathering dust, it's generally worth getting it assessed - even modest pieces can add up, and there's no cost or commitment involved in finding out what it's worth.