Anyone have any experience with silver?

[Bucks45]

For the last six months my wife has tried to get me to look into selling some silver flatware that she's had for years. It was given to her by a distant great aunt years ago and it's never left the closet, probably never will. I knew she had it, but I've never taken the time to look at it. Well, she's been wanting to go shopping in Chicago with her girlfriends and wanted to sell the silver and blow the money. Finally tonight she says, "If you look into it for me I'll give you half the money for your toy fund". I told her to go get it and I would see what I could find out.The first piece I look at is a butter knife. After some digging online I found out that they want $69.99 for just one of these things! She has 18!! The set has a total of 86 pieces in it. I've seen sets of 46 that have an asking price of $3900! I've found out who made it, the pattern name, and I think it's from 1939. I'm having trouble finding a place to get it appraised. Do any of you guys know what kind of places do this? My toy fund is already crying for help!

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: Anyone have any experience with silver?

High end jewelery / gift stores (but, the store should sell jewelry )

Depends on pattern, manufacturer, and how bad someone wants it. Be very careful and be prepared to be insulted .......many places will want to steal it by offering a "scrap" price.

 

[j_martin]

Re: Anyone have any experience with silver?

When the Hunt brothers ran up the silver price in 1980, (To almost $50/oz) a huge amount of heirloom sterling was melted down for the scrap market. Now there's a pretty good market for it, so don't give it away.

 

[The_Kid]

Re: Anyone have any experience with silver?

Check at Replacements Limited to see what they are selling the pattern for. They buy and sell older china and silver patterns.

http://www.replacements.com/

 

[Bucks45]

Re: Anyone have any experience with silver?

Thanks for the help guys! I'm still looking.

 

[roscoe]

Re: Anyone have any experience with silver?

Throw it on ebay with a high reserve or best offer, see what kind of interest there is.

 

[Bucks45]

Re: Anyone have any experience with silver?

Throw it on ebay with a high reserve or best offer, see what kind of interest there is.

I thought about that. I don't have much ebay experience. If I post it as best offer, do I have to accept the best offer?

 

[Link]

Re: Anyone have any experience with silver?

Follow Rocoes (sp) advice.
Put a reserve on it on with Ebay.
Collectors will pay more (with reason) than the silver is worth.
Silver bars in the late 1980?s sold for $50.00 a once.
Now 2010 it is like $17.00 an ounce.
A single spoon with the right mint marks could put it at the price of gold.

Link

 

[Bucks45]

Re: Anyone have any experience with silver?

I'm no where near an antiques expert. Do I clean this stuff first or does that take away from the antique appeal?

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: Anyone have any experience with silver?

It is okay to polish silver flatware. If you want you could always leave one setting w/o polish but, it is common to polish the flatware.

 

[j_martin]

Re: Anyone have any experience with silver?

I disagree with Bob. If you don't know exactly what you're doing, it's better to leave it tarnished than try to clean it up. A collector would much rather have a tarnished piece that can be properly cleaned, than one that is bright and shiny, but damaged by the cleaning.

BTW, the Hunt brothers price spike was in 1980. Then the price rapidly fell to about 3.00. Current price is about 17.30. 4 days ago it was 18.50.

 

[Bucks45]

Re: Anyone have any experience with silver?

I disagree with Bob. If you don't know exactly what you're doing, it's better to leave it tarnished than try to clean it up. A collector would much rather have a tarnished piece that can be properly cleaned, than one that is bright and shiny, but damaged by the cleaning.

BTW, the Hunt brothers price spike was in 1980. Then the price rapidly fell to about 3.00. Current price is about 17.30. 4 days ago it was 18.50.

Thanks!