Melt value is what your silver is worth as raw metal — nothing more. It ignores the maker, the age and the craftsmanship, and prices the piece by weight and purity alone at today’s spot price. Enter the two numbers below and you have it.
The spot price above is fetched once a day from live market data, so the figure moves with the market rather than sitting frozen at whatever silver cost when this page was written.
How the number is worked out
There is no secret to it, and you should be able to check any buyer’s arithmetic yourself. Silver is priced per troy ounce — 31.1035 grams, not the 28.35 grams of the ordinary kitchen ounce. Three steps:
- Weigh the piece in grams. Any set of digital kitchen scales is accurate enough.
- Multiply by the fineness. Sterling is 0.925, so 100 g of sterling contains 92.5 g of pure silver.
- Convert to troy ounces and multiply by spot. Divide the fine weight by 31.1035, then multiply by the spot price.
A 100 g sterling teapot therefore holds 92.5 g of fine silver, which is 2.974 troy ounces. At a spot price of $66 that is roughly $196 of metal. That is the whole calculation — the rest of this page is about the ways it misleads people.
Why nobody will pay you the melt value
Melt value is a ceiling, not an offer. The buyer has to refine the metal, and refining costs money: assaying, transport, insurance, the refiner’s own margin, and the working capital tied up while the lot is processed. That cost comes out of your side of the deal.
| Who you sell to | Typical share of melt |
|---|---|
| Refinery, large clean lot | 90–95% |
| Established scrap or bullion dealer | 80–90% |
| High-street jeweller or pawnbroker | 60–75% |
| “We buy gold and silver” pop-up | Often below 50% |
The calculator shows a 60–90% band because that is where most real transactions land. If an offer sits below that band, the number is not wrong — the buyer is simply keeping more of it. Get a second quote before agreeing.
Weigh the silver, not the object
This is the single most common way a melt estimate goes badly wrong, and it catches people who have done everything else correctly. Many silver objects are not solid silver throughout.
- Candlesticks are usually weighted. The base is filled with pitch, plaster or cement to stop them toppling. A pair that weighs 1.2 kg on the scales may hold only 300 g of silver, and a buyer will know it even if you don’t.
- Knife handles are hollow, filled with resin or cement, and the blade is normally stainless steel. Flatware sets are routinely priced with the knives set aside for this reason.
- Loaded salts, vases and trophy bases follow the same pattern.
- Mounts and inserts — glass liners, wooden handles, steel hinges and pins — are not silver and are not paid for.
Weighted pieces are often marked as such. Look for weighted, cement filled or reinforced stamped near the hallmark. If a piece is marked that way, the calculator’s answer for its gross weight will be far too high — you need the silver weight, which in practice means asking the buyer to weigh it after the fill is removed, or accepting an estimate.
Silver plate and EPNS have no melt value
Select “Silver plate / EPNS” in the calculator and it returns zero. That is not a bug and it is not pessimism. Electroplated wares carry a layer of silver measured in microns over a nickel or copper-alloy base. The quantity is real but it is far too small and too costly to recover — refiners will not take it, and the pop-up buyers who will are not paying you for the silver.
Plated pieces still have value, but as objects rather than as metal: a good Victorian EPNS tea service sells perfectly well to somebody who wants a tea service. If your marks read EPNS, A1, silver on copper or a maker’s name with no fineness figure, you are almost certainly holding plate. Our EPNS reference goes through the marks in detail, and the plate marks guide covers the rest.
Check the marks before you decide to melt
Melt value is the floor beneath a piece of silver, and for worn, damaged or anonymous items it is a fair guide to what you will get. But it is only the floor. An identified maker, a scarce assay office or an early date letter can multiply that figure several times over, and melting is irreversible.
The gap is not subtle. Plain Georgian tablespoons trade close to their metal value; the same spoons by a named London maker with a clean set of marks do not. A Victorian sugar caster that melts for its silver content can sell for a multiple of that to somebody buying the object. The marks are what separates the two cases, and they take a minute to read.
Before you sell anything for scrap, work through the marks: how to identify a hallmark step by step, the visual hallmarks chart, and the makers’ marks index. If the piece turns out to be unmarked or the marks are worn past reading, melt value is the honest answer and this calculator gives it to you.
Silver purities and what they mean
The fineness figure in the calculator is the proportion of pure silver in the alloy. Pure silver is too soft for use, so almost everything you will handle is alloyed with copper.
| Standard | Fineness | Where you meet it |
|---|---|---|
| Fine silver | 0.999 | Bullion bars and rounds, some modern jewellery findings |
| Britannia | 0.958 | British silver 1697–1720, and modern pieces marked with the Britannia figure |
| Sterling | 0.925 | The British and American standard; the great majority of antique silver |
| Coin silver | 0.900 | American silver before about 1868, often marked coin or pure coin |
| 84 zolotnik | 0.875 | Imperial Russian silver |
| Continental | 0.835 | Widely used across Europe, especially in the twentieth century |
| German / Dutch | 0.800 | The common German standard; also Dutch, Austrian and Scandinavian work |
| Silver plate / EPNS | — | No recoverable silver content |
If you are not sure which applies, the sterling identification guide explains how the numbers and words appear on real pieces, and the marks guide starts from the beginning.
Common questions
Is melt value the same as scrap value?
Near enough in everyday use, but not identical. Melt value is the metal’s market worth. Scrap value is what a buyer will actually hand you for it, which is melt value minus their costs and margin — the 60–90% band above.
Why does the calculator use troy ounces?
Precious metals have been traded in troy weight for centuries and still are. A troy ounce is 31.1035 g against the ordinary ounce’s 28.35 g — about 10% heavier. Using the wrong one overstates your silver by roughly a tenth, which is why the calculator offers both and labels them clearly.
What is a pennyweight?
One twentieth of a troy ounce, 1.5552 g, abbreviated dwt. American scrap buyers frequently quote in pennyweights, so the unit is in the calculator to let you check their figures on their own terms.
Does the hallmark change the melt value?
Not the melt value itself — metal is metal. It changes whether melting is a sensible thing to do. The hallmark tells you the fineness to put into the calculator, and it may also tell you the piece is worth considerably more intact.
How often does the price update?
Once a day, from live market data, with the date shown above the calculator. Silver moves during the trading day, so treat the result as accurate to within a percent or two rather than to the cent.