What about silverware, silver serving sets, tea sets, etc? Is this stuff the same as"junk silver", or different? How much is it worth?
TIA!
What about silverware, silver serving sets, tea sets, etc? Is this stuff the same as"junk silver", or different? How much is it worth?
TIA!
A lot of it is plated so it has to be checked. Also, for major buying power meaning high dollar transactions such as buying up half your town when shtf it makes sense, but not for pocket change obviously.
The good stuff is stamped sterling or sterling silver, is it not?
That's going to be a bit difficult. With Pre-64 US minted coins, you know what it is. You know what percentage of silver is there and what that value will be. With a silver tea service. . .not so much. It may be the equivilant of 20 silver dollars, but how do you really know?Originally Posted by Scootertrash
US Constitution: Article 1 Section 8 Paragraph 4
The Congress shall have Power To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization
IMO the best way to look at this is to put yourself in the situation post SHTF of having a valuable object someone is going to barter you out of. What would it take for you to make the deal. IMO you need something provable to be what it is, I wouldn't take a silver fork unless I could prove silver content (which in SHTF I doubt many could do). For this reason I'd stick to US coins, I'm not even sure those off brand silver rounds are going to be all that good as they are only as good as who ever believes what they claim to be.
I'm still a believer that food, bullets, and basic items like that are best. The best place I see for gold and silver is if you have buy passage somewhere else and I'm of the belief that if right here isn't worth living in, any other place will just be worse.
Well...the sterling stuff is marked sterling...
"Sterling" is .925 pure, or 92.5% pure silver.
Pre 65 US coins were .9 pure, 90% pure silver.
So by weight sterling silverware is worth more.
The reason I say sterling is marked sterling, is because a lot of silverware, particularly the older stuff is made from "coin silver"...melted down silver coins, and of course the purity depends on the silver content of the original coin (other countries made silver coins in various degrees or fineness). Some of these are marked "silver" others may have various marks to show they are silver, and many are unmarked.
As to value, if it is marked "sterling" then every troy ounce in weight is worth 92.5% or the spot price of silver, at minimum.
Unless the handles are weighted, usually in the case of knives, where a steel blade is cemented into a hollow silver handle which drastically alters the weight.
The problem is that in a TEOTWAWKI situation, silverware would be much more difficult to trade as silver. You have to know the fineness and the overall weight plus have an agreement on what pure silver is worth to come to a close to exact "price".
Whereas say a pre 65 silver dime is 90% pure silver, should weigh 2.5 grams and contain .0724 of a troy ounce in pure silver.
As Kad said, it's usualy stamped. And that brings up the issue of people stamping silver plated sets. In a shtf scenario you can be sure folks will be trying to con folks out of all sorts of goodies by bartering fakes. Most people can spot a faked US silver coin unless it's very very good. I'd keep such a silverware set for personal/family use or get rid of it before shtf.
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