What Sterling silver 925 is worth and how dealers price it
Sterling silver contains 925 parts of fine silver per thousand, with the remaining 7.5% usually copper for hardness. The standard is centuries old and is used for jewellery, cutlery, candlesticks, trophies and tableware right across Europe, marked 925, STERLING or STG.
Silver scrap is trickier than gold because so many items are only plated. EPNS, A1, silver-plate and similar marks mean nickel or brass under a thin silver layer with essentially no scrap value. Weighted candlesticks and knife handles are also filled with pitch or cement, so buyers deduct or discount them heavily.
A dealer weighs the net 925 content, multiplies by 0.925 to get fine silver grams, multiplies by the live euro silver price per gram and then applies a payout percentage. Because silver has a low value per gram, handling and refining costs eat a bigger share: payouts of 60–80% of melt are common for small lots, rising towards 90% for kilo-scale quantities.
Worked example: a 240 g canteen of sterling cutlery holds 222 g of fine silver. Enter 240 g at 925 above to read the live euro melt value, then set the payout slider to 70% for a realistic high-street offer and 85% for a good specialist quote.
Before selling, check for maker's marks. Georg Jensen, Christofle, Puiforcat and similar names — and any hallmarked antique — are worth far more intact than melted, so photograph the marks and get a second opinion first.