Silver
Scrap Silver Prices UK: What You'll Actually Get Per Gram for 925 & Cutlery (2026)
You've got a drawer of tarnished cutlery, a few old coins and maybe a chunky chain, and you want to know one thing: what's it actually worth by the gram? Silver is where people get the biggest shock, and not always in the direction you'd expect. The melt maths is simple enough, but the gap between melt value and what lands in your hand is wider than most sellers realise. Let's work through exactly how scrap silver is priced in the UK, and where the traps are hiding.
How the melt-per-gram figure is worked out
Every scrap silver quote starts from the spot price, which is quoted per troy ounce. One troy ounce is 31.1035 grams. To get the pure-silver value of a single gram you divide the spot price by 31.1035, then multiply by the fineness of your item. Sterling silver is 925, meaning 92.5% pure, so you multiply by 0.925.
Say silver is trading at a round number and a gram of pure works out to a certain figure. A gram of sterling is 92.5% of that. A gram of fine 999 silver is very nearly the full pure figure. Older Continental and some antique British pieces are 800, so only 80% counts. Our silver calculator does this instantly once you know the fineness and weight, but it's worth understanding the sum so no quote can bamboozle you.
Why silver's payout percentage runs lower than gold's
Here's the part that catches people out. With gold, a good dealer might pay you 90% or more of melt. With scrap silver, the percentage is often noticeably lower, and it's not because anyone's fleecing you. It's arithmetic.
Testing, handling, refining and administration cost roughly the same whether a refiner is processing a gram of gold or a gram of silver. But a gram of gold is worth a great deal, while a gram of silver is worth very little by comparison. Those fixed costs are a tiny slice of a gold payout and a much bigger slice of a silver one. So when you sell a modest amount of sterling, the fixed overhead eats a larger chunk of the melt value, and the effective percentage you're offered drops. This is normal. Frame everything as an estimate rather than a firm offer until the metal is weighed and tested in front of you.
The biggest trap: hallmarked vs "925 stamp" vs plated
Most so-called silver cutlery in British homes isn't silver at all. It's EPNS, electroplated nickel silver, or plate, a thin skin of silver over a base metal. It has almost no scrap value because the silver layer is microns thin. If your canteen is stamped EPNS, A1, or "silver plated", that's your answer, and it's a common and disappointing one.
Genuine solid silver carries a proper UK hallmark: a series of stamped symbols including the lion passant for sterling, an assay office mark and a date letter. A lone "925" stamp is a weaker signal. It's used honestly on plenty of imported modern jewellery, but it's also stamped on fakes and on plate. Treat a bare "925" as promising but unproven, and a full British hallmark as trustworthy. If you're unsure what you're looking at, our UK silver hallmarks guide and the broader hallmarks reference walk you through the symbols step by step.
Canteens and cutlery
Even genuine solid-silver cutlery has a catch: knife handles are usually hollow and "loaded" with resin or pitch to give them weight, and the blades are stainless steel. A refiner pays for the silver content, not the gross weight, so a heavy canteen weighs far less in actual recoverable silver than the scales suggest. Weigh forks and spoons separately from loaded knife handles, and expect the recoverable figure to be well under the total.
Coins: the useful exception
Old British silver coins follow simple rules. Coins dated 1920 to 1946 are 50% silver (500 fineness). Coins from 1919 and earlier are 92.5% silver, the same as sterling. So a jar of pre-1947 change has a real, calculable silver content, and pre-1920 pieces carry nearly twice the silver of the later ones.
Modern silver Britannia coins are a different animal. They're 999 fine and, crucially, they're legal tender, which makes them exempt from Capital Gains Tax when you sell. Because they're recognised bullion, they trade near their silver value rather than at a scrap discount, so never lump a Britannia in with the melting pot at a general cash-for-metal counter.
Why bulk earns a better rate
Remember those fixed costs. If you turn up with a single sterling ring, the testing and admin overhead is spread across a tiny melt value, so the percentage is poor. Bring a kilo of assorted sterling and that same overhead is spread across a much larger sum, so the effective per-gram rate improves. This is why refiners and serious dealers quote better percentages for bulk, and why it can pay to gather everything and sell in one go rather than piecemeal.
A few practical steps will get you the best realistic number. Sort your items by hallmark and set aside anything marked EPNS or plate. Weigh solid pieces separately from loaded knife handles. Note the fineness of each group, run it through the calculator to get an honest melt estimate, then judge any dealer's quote against that. If someone offers a whisker under melt on a large parcel of clean sterling, that's a strong quote. If they offer you half of melt on a single spoon, now you know why, and whether it's worth the trip.
All figures are estimates of melt value, never offers. Not financial or tax advice.