How Much is Sterling Silver Worth

Using sterling as a descriptor for silver has a long history. While it may have existed earlier, the term officially entered the vernacular in 1300.

In that year, King Edward I of England issued a royal decree that all silver pieces must be minted to a specific level of purity. This standard was declared to be the sterling level of purity.

Since then, sterling silver has become a standard medium for currency, jewelry, flatware, and other common objects. However, like any silver, sterling silver’s values fluctuate with the spot price of silver. In some cases, those fluctuations can be quite dramatic.

The nice thing, though, is that sterling silver’s value is not entirely contained by the spot price of silver. Objects made with it can and often do have higher prices than their metal content would suggest.

So, let’s talk about what factors can influence the price of sterling silver and how you, the savvy collector, can estimate the value of your sterling holdings.

Understanding Sterling Silver

A sterling silver piece must be 92.5% pure silver to qualify. The rest of the piece is a metal or metals that add strength to the piece. Usually, the other metal is copper, but it may also be zinc, nickel, or tin.

Sterling silver differs from fine silver due to the last 7.5%. Fine, or pure, silver pieces are 99.9% silver or higher. However, because silver is soft and somewhat malleable, professionals like jewelers or coinmakers might prefer to use sterling silver in order to make a piece that will hold its shape more effectively.

Factors That Influence Sterling Silver Prices

Several different factors can influence the price of sterling silver going up or down. Even though it is cast as a 92.5% pure item, a sterling silver piece still begins its life as ore, and its journey from mine to market is not always an easy one.

At a basic level, the price for silver is determined by the same forces that govern the prices for most other products – supply and demand. The amount of silver (and sterling silver) available is weighed against the demand for sterling silver, and the price is an indication of where the balance between the two lies.

• Cost: The first element that affects the silver is the cost and difficulty associated with mining silver ore out of the ground. If veins are drying up, mines are closing, or the amount of ore that miners can recover is constrained, the price for silver, sterling or otherwise, is likely to go up.
• Politics: Silver prices are also influenced by political conditions or leadership in countries where silver mines are located. A crackdown on exports, worker strikes, or other geopolitical events might constrain the supply of silver for that country’s mines. Conversely, and probably more rarely, a new political movement might loosen the exports or regulations that affect the country’s silver output.
• Market conditions: Silver is used extensively by several industries, including electronics and medicine. However, the real push for more silver is coming from the growing solar panel industry, which relies heavily on silver’s conductivity to function efficiently.

All of these elements come together to form the spot price for an ounce of silver. The spot price technically reflects the value of the nearest futures contracts to expire on the commodities markets. For practical purposes, however, it represents the price for a troy ounce of silver based on supply and demand.

The value of the sterling pieces, therefore, is a partial reflection of that spot price. Its 92.5% purity level means that the raw metal value (melt value) of a piece of sterling silver is less than that of a full ounce of silver. In order to illustrate, let’s walk through how to calculate this intrinsic value.

How to Calculate the Value of Sterling Silver

Step 1: Weigh the Item

The first step is to weigh your item as accurately as possible. Use a scale that provides especially accurate measurements, as having the precise weight of your item is critical.

Be aware of the units in which you find the weight. It’s fine if you reach an answer in grams, troy ounces, pounds, or kilograms, but you need to be sure about which unit you’re using before you proceed.

Step 2: Convert to troy ounces

The next step is to convert the weight of your silver into troy ounces. Because the spot price for silver is a troy ounce measure, you need to make sure your units line up to get an accurate calculation.

We recommend that you use as precise a conversion as possible, but here are some rounded conversions if you’re in a pinch:

Step 3: Determine the Purity

Once you have the weight of your item in troy ounces, you must then multiply this number by 0.925. Because sterling silver is 92.5% pure silver, the calculation will determine the actual weight of pure silver within your item.

Step 4: Find the Current Spot Price

Now that you know how many troy ounces of silver you have, you need to find out the price for a single troy ounce of silver in the open market. So, head to a reputable source to find a real-time report of the current spot price for silver.

As it happens, we have one of those real-time reports on JM Bullion. You can find it at the top of any of our pages, including the homepage.

Step 5: Calculate the Value

Finally, multiply the spot price by the amount of troy ounces of silver in your item. At that point, you will have arrived at the intrinsic value of the metal itself. It’s an important foundational measure to know, although it doesn’t paint the full picture of the value of a sterling piece.

Example

Let’s say that you have a sterling silver item that weighs 10 standard ounces.

So, the first thing would be to figure out how many troy ounces you have. A quick calculation reveals that your item weighs 9.115 troy ounces.

Next, let’s figure out the amount of pure silver you have in your item. So, we’ll multiply the troy ounces by 92.5%, or 0.925. Thus, we have 8.431 troy ounces in our sterling item.

Now, let’s see what the spot price is, and multiply that figure by our troy ounces of pure silver. At the time of this writing, the spot price is $30.64 per ounce.

So, the final value of our 10-ounce item’s silver content is 8.431*$30.64, or $258.58.

Price of Sterling Silver Jewelry vs. Other Items

As we mentioned, though, the melt value of the silver in your item is only part of the story.

Sterling silver is used extensively by jewelers, minters, and other precious metals traders to create both standard and custom pieces for customers and investors. Jewelry makers like James Avery and Pandora have created brand value for their pieces that surpasses the value of the silver within.

Part of that brand value stems from the craftsmanship associated with these companies’ items. Stating that your piece of jewelry is from one of these companies, like Kendra Scott or Jared, conveys a certain cachet about how nice the item is. Some of them, like Kendra Scott, may also have trademark designs that are emblematic of the brand.

Companies producing other items, such as flatware, may also benefit from similar brand loyalty and value. Retailers like Tiffany, Reed & Barton, and Georg Jansen have a word-of-mouth following that goes beyond the mere silver content of their knives, forks, and spoons, and these pieces tend to hold their value for years to come.

In fact, the historic value and significance of older sterling silver pieces can also add to their value. Collectors or antique aficionados may be willing to pay top dollar for particular vintages of certain sterling silver pieces from times past.

Conclusion

Hopefully, you now have a better idea about all the different factors that can affect the price of sterling silver.

Obviously, the silver content of the piece itself has intrinsic value. It is important for you to know this amount as a baseline for the markup on the pieces – just in order to shop and sell more effectively.

However, the price of sterling silver is often influenced by the craftsmanship, design, and brand identity of the specific piece. So, bear in mind that not all sterling silver pieces are created equal – even if they are objectively equal.

The best thing to do to get a fair value of your sterling silver is to turn to a trusted professional in the market. Do your own calculations so that you already have an idea, but a coin shop, precious metals dealer, or jeweler can probably give you a better idea than any home computations.