Silver Calculator — Check Melt, Scrap & Sterling Silver Value
Every silver valuation comes down to the same three numbers: how much it weighs, how pure it is, and the spot price today. This calculator covers the four situations people actually run into: melt value by weight and purity for anything from bullion to flatware, a sterling silver (925) shortcut with the 92.5% factor built in, a scrap payout estimate that applies a dealer percentage to the melt value, and a plain ounces-times-price lookup. One honest caveat up front: silver-plated items are not silver in any meaningful sense, and this page says so plainly.
Result
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Disclaimer: This calculator gives an estimate based on the numbers you enter and is meant for general informational purposes only – it is not financial, investment, or professional appraisal advice. Silver spot prices change continuously throughout the trading day, and actual dealer offers vary by item condition, purity testing, and market conditions at the time of sale. For valuable, antique, or collectible silver, consider getting a professional appraisal in addition to this estimate. Always compare quotes from more than one buyer before selling.
Formula
Quick Answer
A 100-gram item at 92.5% purity with spot at $0.80 per gram has a melt value of $74. The same spot price makes a 500-gram sterling piece worth $416.25, and 200 grams sold to a dealer at an 80% payout brings $118.4 against a $148 melt value. The calculator above is pre-filled with the 100-gram example. Enter the spot price yourself; this tool does not pull live quotes.
Key takeaways
- Melt value is a ceiling, not an offer. Dealers pay a percentage of it, and the scrap tool models that percentage directly.
- Sterling means 92.5% silver by FTC guidance. Anything plated has only a thin coating and effectively zero melt value.
- Precious metals are priced per troy ounce (31.1035 grams), not the kitchen-scale ounce. Mixing the two overstates value by nearly 10%.
- This calculator does not fetch the live spot price. Look up the current quote and type it in; the LBMA silver benchmark is set once daily at noon London time.
- Quick Answer
- How to use the silver calculator
- How the melt math works
- Worked example: 100 grams at 92.5% purity
- Where the spot price actually comes from
- Sterling, fine, and coin silver: the purity marks
- The silver-plate trap: why plated items are worth nothing
- What scrap dealers actually pay
- What competing calculators miss
- Frequently asked questions
How to use the silver calculator
Pick the situation that matches yours from the dropdown, fill in the fields, and click Calculate. Results stay hidden until you do.
- Silver Value by Weight and Purity: enter the weight in grams, the purity as a percentage (92.5 for sterling, 99.9 for fine silver), and the spot price per gram. This is the general tool for anything with a known purity.
- Sterling Silver (925) Value: enter weight and spot price only. The 92.5% factor is built in, since sterling is the standard for jewelry, flatware and tableware.
- Scrap Silver Payout Estimate: adds the dealer payout percentage. Melt value is what the metal is worth; the payout is what a buyer will actually hand you, typically 50 to 95% of melt depending on the buyer.
- Silver Value by Ounces and Price: a straight lookup. Enter troy ounces and the price per troy ounce.
The spot price field is yours to fill, and this is the most important honest detail on the page: many competing tools pull live quotes, but this one does not. Get the current spot from a market source, type it in, and re-run the calculation whenever the price moves. If your scale reads ounces rather than grams, the grams to ounces calculator converts between the two before you start.
How the melt math works
Every valuation on this page is the same arithmetic: pure silver content times the price of pure silver.
Sterling shortcut = Weight (grams) x 0.925 x Spot price (per gram)
Scrap payout = Melt value x Dealer payout %
Ounces lookup = Troy ounces x Price per troy ounce
The purity percentage is what most people get wrong. A 100-gram item at 92.5% purity contains only 92.5 grams of silver, so the tool multiplies the weight down before applying the price. The second trap is the ounce: silver is quoted per troy ounce of 31.1035 grams, while a kitchen scale’s avoirdupois ounce is 28.3495 grams. Feeding regular ounces into a troy-ounce price inflates the answer by 9.7%, which is a large error to make by accident. Convert with 1 troy ounce = 31.1035 grams, or divide a per-troy-ounce spot quote by 31.1035 to get the per-gram price this tool wants.
If you are valuing coins rather than loose silver, the melt value of coins calculator works from coin specifications instead of a scale, and the gold price per ounce calculator is the sister tool for the other metal you are probably holding alongside it.
Worked example: 100 grams at 92.5% purity
The pre-filled run is the classic case: 100 grams of sterling-weight silver at a $0.80 per gram spot. Here is what each of the four tools returns for the same market conditions.
| Tool | Inputs | Result |
|---|---|---|
| By Weight | 100 g, 92.5%, $0.80/g | $74 |
| Sterling (925) | 500 g, $0.90/g | $416.25 |
| Scrap payout | 200 g, 92.5%, $0.80/g, 80% payout | $148 melt, $118.4 payout |
| By Ounces | 10 troy oz at $25/oz | $250 |
Read the sterling row as a bar chart and the scale of purity is obvious: at the same spot price, fine silver (.999) carries roughly 8% more value per gram than sterling, and coin silver (.900) carries about 3% less. The metal content, not the object’s size, is doing all the work.
Where the spot price actually comes from
Silver does not have one price on a shelf; it has a continuously traded spot market plus a once-a-day settlement benchmark.
The benchmark is the LBMA Silver Price: an electronic auction at noon London time that sets the internationally recognised reference for silver delivered in London, administered by ICE Benchmark Administration, according to the LBMA itself. Spot quotes from dealers and market sites move around the clock and sit very close to that benchmark. Because this calculator does not pull a live feed, the right habit is: check the current quote from a market source, convert it to per gram by dividing the per-troy-ounce figure by 31.1035, type it into the tool, and re-run before any real transaction. A spot price from yesterday morning is the wrong input for this afternoon’s sale.
Sterling, fine, and coin silver: the purity marks
Use the By Weight tool for anything whose mark you can read, and the Sterling tool for anything stamped 925 or “sterling”.
| Mark | Meaning | Silver content |
|---|---|---|
| 925 / Sterling | Jewelry, flatware, tableware standard | 92.5% |
| 999 / Fine | Bullion bars, rounds, modern coins | 99.9% |
| 900 / Coin | Pre-1965 US dimes, quarters, halves | 90% |
| 800 / 835 | Older European pieces | 80 to 83.5% |
| EPNS / EP / Plated | Silver plate: thin coating over base metal | ~0% melt |
The FTC’s Jewelry Guides set the legal meaning of the words: nothing may be marketed as “sterling silver” unless it is at least 925 parts per thousand silver, and “coin” or “coin silver” is reserved for 900 parts per thousand. That is not etiquette; it is the line between an honest listing and a deceptive one.
The silver-plate trap: why plated items are worth nothing
Silver plate is not low-grade silver. It is a base-metal object (brass, copper, nickel alloy) with a silver coating a few microns thick, applied for looks. The coating contains so little metal that refiners will not pay for it, and dealers treat plated flatware and tea sets as base metal worth nothing at melt.
This matters because plated pieces are large and heavy, which fools the eye: a 2-kilogram plated tea set looks like a fortune and melts like a doorstop. If a piece is stamped EPNS, EP, “silver plate” or “silver on copper”, do not run it through the melt tool; the honest answer is already known. There is one real exception worth naming: antique or designer plated pieces (Christofle, for example) can carry collector value as objects, but that value has nothing to do with their silver content and no melt calculator can price it. Sell those to a specialist, not a scrap buyer.
What scrap dealers actually pay
Melt value is the ceiling. Between you and the refinery sit testing, refining, shipping and the buyer’s margin, so no real offer equals melt.
The scrap tool exists because this is the question people actually need answered before they sell. Pawn shops sit at the bottom of the range, often paying 50 to 70% of melt. Local coin and bullion dealers typically land between 70 and 90%. Refiners, who melt the metal themselves, pay closest to melt but only for volume and with assay fees. The tool defaults to an 80% payout, which is a realistic middle of the road for a walk-in local dealer. Whatever the tool says, compare quotes from more than one buyer before selling, and weigh the piece on a digital gram scale with stones and clasps removed first. Hollow handles, weighted bases and repairs filled with lead all make the scale lie in the seller’s favour and the buyer’s testing will catch it.
What competing calculators miss
The SERP for this keyword is full of competent melt tools, and most of them share the same gaps this page is built to close:
- Live prices without a payout model: the strongest rivals (US Gold and Coin’s melt tool, FindBullionPrices’ sterling calculator, CoinCodex’s scrap tool) pull live spot quotes and cover coins, sterling and fineness well. But they stop at melt value, which is the one number a seller will never actually receive. The scrap payout mode here turns melt into the realistic offer range before you walk into a shop.
- Four tools in one workflow: rivals are single-purpose pages. This page covers weight-based valuation, the sterling shortcut, the dealer payout estimate and the ounces lookup in one place, with the formula for the active tool printed under the results.
- The troy-ounce warning: OnlyCalculators’ melt guide explains the troy versus avoirdupois distinction well; most tools assume you already know it. This page states it in the tooltips, the formula section and the FAQs, because a 9.7% unit error is the easiest expensive mistake in this topic.
- Silver plate, answered honestly: no rival tool prices plated items, and one old page on this site used to point readers at a dedicated silver-plate calculator. That tool never had real demand (the honest melt answer is about $0), so the niche is covered directly here instead: plate is a coating, it has no melt value, and the marks to watch for are EPNS and EP.
- No live price, stated openly: this tool asks you to type the spot price, and says so in the Quick Answer, the takeaways and the tooltips. Rivals with live feeds win on convenience; this page wins on honesty about what its numbers assume.
Frequently asked questions
Multiply the weight in grams by the purity as a decimal and by the current spot price per gram. A 100-gram item at 92.5% purity with spot at $0.80 per gram holds $74 in melt value. Use the calculator above, and remember that melt value is the ceiling: a buyer will offer a percentage of it, which the scrap payout tool models.
No. This tool does not pull a live feed; you enter the spot price yourself. Check the current quote from a market source, divide a per-troy-ounce figure by 31.1035 to get the per-gram price, and type it in. Re-run the calculation before any real transaction, because spot moves continuously through the trading day.
925 means 925 parts per thousand pure silver, or 92.5%: the definition of sterling silver, usually alloyed with copper for strength. FTC Jewelry Guides prohibit marketing anything as sterling silver unless it meets that 925 threshold, so a genuine 925 stamp is the most trustworthy mark you will find.
At melt, effectively nothing. Silver plate is a base-metal object with a thin silver coating a few microns thick; the coating holds so little metal that refiners will not pay for it. Pieces stamped EPNS, EP or “silver plate” should not be run through a melt calculator. The exception is antique or designer plated pieces with collector value as objects, which is unrelated to their silver content.
A percentage of melt value, not the melt value itself. Pawn shops often pay 50 to 70%, local dealers 70 to 90%, and refiners closest to melt but with fees and minimums. The scrap tool defaults to an 80% payout as a realistic middle for a walk-in dealer. Compare quotes from more than one buyer before selling.
A troy ounce is 31.1035 grams; a regular (avoirdupois) ounce is 28.3495 grams. Precious metals are always quoted per troy ounce, so feeding kitchen-scale ounces into a troy-ounce price overstates the value by about 9.7%. Convert first, or weigh in grams.
Use a digital gram scale, and remove stones, clasps and non-silver parts first. Weigh hollow pieces with suspicion: weighted bases, filled repairs and hollow handles make the scale read high. Sort by purity mark before weighing, because one mixed pile cannot be valued at one purity.
No. Melt value is the metal content at spot price, nothing more. Bullion bought from a dealer carries a premium above spot, collectible coins can be worth far more than their silver, and damaged or worn coins slightly less. For valuable, antique or collectible pieces, get a professional appraisal rather than relying on a melt figure.
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References
- London Bullion Market Association. About LBMA Daily Auction Prices. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- ICE Benchmark Administration. LBMA Silver Price, ICE Developer Portal. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- U.S. Geological Survey, National Minerals Information Center. Silver Statistics and Information. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- United States Mint. American Eagle 2026 One Ounce Silver Proof Coin (one troy ounce of.999 fine silver). Accessed October 23, 2026.
- Society of American Silversmiths. Federal Trade Commission Guidelines Regarding Silver (Section 23.6, sterling and coin silver thresholds). Accessed October 23, 2026.