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Last updated: August 11, 2026 · By White Metal Resources Editorial
Quick answer: Scrap silver value equals the pure silver weight of the item multiplied by the day's silver spot price, minus the buyer's spread. A sterling flatware piece at .925 fineness is 92.5 percent silver by weight. A US pre-1965 dime, quarter or half is .900 fineness at 90 percent silver. Multiply the item's gross weight by its fineness, convert grams to troy ounces, then multiply by spot.
Dealers pay a percentage of that computed melt, not the full melt. A refiner buying a large clean lot usually pays 90 to 97 percent of melt. A coin shop buying US 90 percent junk silver by the roll or bag pays around 90 to 95 percent of melt. A jewelry buyer paying for a walk-in sterling teapot usually pays 60 to 80 percent. Compute your number first, then compare quotes.
Short on time? The essentials
- Melt value is a computation, not a quote. Formula: gross weight in grams times fineness times spot price per gram. Or convert to troy ounces at 31.1035 grams per troy ounce, then multiply by spot price per troy ounce.
- Sterling silver marked 925 or STERLING is 92.5 percent silver by weight. Coin silver marked 900 or COIN is 90 percent silver by weight. Continental 800 silver is 80 percent silver by weight. Silver plate is a thin silver coating over base metal and holds essentially no melt value.
- US pre-1965 dimes, quarters and half dollars are 90 percent silver. A one-dollar face bag of these coins in circulated condition holds about 0.715 troy ounces of silver. Uncirculated theoretical is 0.7234 troy ounces per dollar of face value.
- At an illustrative 30 dollars per troy ounce, 100 grams of sterling scrap holds about 2.975 troy ounces of pure silver, worth about 89.24 dollars in melt content. Substitute the day's real spot to reprice.
- Refiners pay differently than coin shops because their unit economics differ. A refiner runs a fire assay or an X-ray fluorescence scan, melts the lot, subtracts a refining charge and pays a percentage of the recovered silver value. Coin shops pay on face value or per-piece for recognizable US silver coinage without assay.
- Lot size drives the spread. A single sterling candlestick usually attracts a wider spread than a shipped 5-kilogram lot of the same fineness. Refiners quote by minimum lot size, often 500 or 1000 troy ounces of gross weight for the best terms.
- Antique, hallmark or maker premiums are qualitative, not automatic. A signed Georg Jensen or Tiffany piece may fetch multiples of melt from a collector, but the melt buyer pays the same as for anonymous sterling. Get an antique appraisal before selling to a scrap desk.
- Silver held inside a self-directed IRA is a different topic entirely. IRA silver has to sit at .999 fineness or better in an approved depository. That is covered in our silver IRA fineness explainer.
- Federal Trade Commission consumer guidance on bullion and coin sales applies to buyers and sellers. Ask for the fineness assumption, the spot reference used, and the percentage of melt paid, all in writing before the coins leave your hands.
- The single best consumer move before you sell is to compute your own melt number, then call two or three dealers on the same day and compare quotes. The gap between the highest and lowest quote often exceeds 20 percentage points on the same item.
Scrap silver is a market with an unusual property. The commodity value is public and easy to compute. Almost every buyer prices from the same daily silver reference. Yet the number a seller actually receives varies wildly, sometimes by twenty or thirty percentage points on the same object. The gap is not random. It reflects a small set of business decisions that dealers make behind the counter.
This page opens the math. It walks through the melt formula, the fineness of the common scrap silver categories, and the way refiners and coin shops price differently. It also covers the effect of lot size and assay cost on the spread, plus a worked example on a real 100 gram sterling scrap lot. The goal is a single reference that lets a seller compute a fair number before walking into a dealer.
The melt formula every dealer uses
Every commercial buyer prices scrap silver from the same base formula. Gross weight of the item, times fineness, gives pure silver weight. Pure silver weight, times silver spot price per unit, gives melt value. Everything past that formula is a percentage adjustment for spread, refining and margin.
The units matter. Silver spot is quoted in US dollars per troy ounce, and one troy ounce equals 31.1035 grams. A jewelry scale usually weighs in grams. So a common working form of the formula is: grams times fineness, divided by 31.1035, times spot price per troy ounce equals melt value in dollars. That is the whole calculation.
Fineness is a decimal. Sterling silver is .925 fineness, or 92.5 percent silver by weight. Coin silver, the US pre-1965 dimes, quarters and halves, is .900 fineness, or 90 percent silver by weight. Continental 800 silver is .800 fineness, or 80 percent silver. Silver plate has essentially no silver value because the coating measured in microns is not commercially recoverable.
Fineness map for scrap silver
The hallmark or stamp on a piece is the first fineness clue. American sterling flatware, holloware, jewelry and antique pieces from about 1868 forward are usually marked STERLING or 925. English sterling carries a lion passant hallmark along with an assay-office town mark and a date letter. Continental European silver is often marked 800, 830, 835 or 900 in a small stamp. Coin silver American flatware from before roughly 1870 is often marked COIN or simply COIN SILVER.
Silver plate is separate. Common plate marks include EPNS (electroplated nickel silver), EP (electroplate), TRIPLE PLATE, QUADRUPLE PLATE, A1, EPBM (electroplated Britannia metal), and maker names like Rogers Bros, Community, Oneida, Wm Rogers or International Silver Company followed by a plate designation. A plate mark means the item is base metal with a thin silver coating and holds no scrap silver value for a refiner.
US silver coins have their own fineness map. Pre-1965 dimes, quarters and halves are .900. The 1965 through 1970 Kennedy half is 40 percent silver clad, which averages to .400 fineness across the coin. War nickels from 1942 through 1945 are 35 percent silver, or .350 fineness. American Silver Eagles are .999 fineness. Canadian Silver Maple Leafs are .9999 fineness. Coins outside these categories usually carry no silver.
Why spot silver is the reference and how it moves
Spot silver is the reference price used by every dealer in the scrap chain, from the walk-in counter to the wholesale refiner. In the United States, silver spot commonly refers to the near-month COMEX silver futures contract or the London LBMA Silver Price benchmark, both quoted in dollars per troy ounce. CME Group states that the standard COMEX silver futures contract represents 5000 troy ounces and is quoted in dollars and cents per troy ounce.
The number changes minute by minute during market hours. It can move by a dollar or two per ounce in a single session on a volatile day. That is why dealer quotes carry a time stamp. A quote given at 10 a.m. is only good against the 10 a.m. spot, and a good dealer will lock the trade price at the moment paperwork is signed rather than at the moment of the initial call.
The Silver Institute reports that industrial demand accounts for a majority of annual silver consumption, alongside coin, bar and jewelry demand. That mix is why spot silver can move on manufacturing news and interest rate expectations, not only on retail bullion flows. It also means spot behaves as a real commodity price rather than a slow-moving collectible index.
The dealer math, decoded by item type
Dealers do not price every scrap silver category the same way. Item type drives the spread, which is the gap between what the dealer pays and the underlying melt. Below is the working math per common item category, all before shipping and insurance costs.
Sterling silver flatware and holloware is priced from gross weight times .925 times spot, minus a refining margin. A wholesale refiner buying a clean sorted 5 kilogram lot of sterling usually pays between 90 and 97 percent of the computed melt. A retail jewelry buyer taking a single teapot off the counter usually pays between 60 and 80 percent of melt because the fixed cost of sorting, weighing and assay eats a larger share of a small transaction.
US 90 percent silver coinage is priced by face value or by piece. A coin shop buying a one-dollar face bag of pre-1965 dimes, quarters and halves in circulated condition uses 0.715 troy ounces per dollar of face value as the working figure. That accounts for typical wear on circulated coins.
Buy prices on these coins are quoted in dollars per one-dollar face bag, or in a multiple of face value such as "20 times face" or "22 times face" depending on the day's spot.
The 1965 through 1970 40 percent Kennedy half is priced at 0.1479 troy ounces per coin. War nickels from 1942 through 1945 are priced at about 0.0563 troy ounces of silver per nickel. Neither category commands a numismatic premium above melt for common circulated dates, and coin shops typically pay 80 to 90 percent of computed melt.
Silver bars and rounds from recognizable LBMA-listed or COMEX-listed refiners are the easiest to move. A stamped 100 ounce Engelhard bar or a stamped 10 ounce Johnson Matthey bar usually clears at 95 to 99 percent of melt because the buyer skips assay entirely. Generic rounds from unlisted refiners often see a slightly wider spread because the buyer wants a spot-check assay.
Why refiners pay differently than coin shops
A refiner and a coin shop are running two different businesses. Understanding the difference tells you which door to walk through with which pile.
A refiner buys scrap silver by the lot, melts it into bars, assays the result, and either sells the recovered silver to a bullion market or returns it to the customer as pool-account credit for a fee. The refiner earns money from a per-ounce refining charge, a small percentage lost to processing, and any spread between the paid melt percentage and 100 percent of recovered silver. Refiners want volume and clean sorting. They pay best on large, clean, sorted lots.
A coin shop buys silver by the piece, holds it as inventory, and resells to retail bullion buyers or to a wholesale dealer network. The shop earns money on the resale spread rather than on refining. It pays best on recognizable, resalable pieces: sealed sovereign coins, common junk silver bags, listed refiner bars. It pays worst on odd pieces that will need to be shipped to a refiner as the next step.
A pawn shop or jewelry buyer buys silver as one item in a broader inventory line. It weighs and pays on the same melt formula in principle, but the retail location, staff time and single-piece transaction cost push the paid percentage lower. Pawn desks routinely pay 50 to 70 percent of melt on sterling scrap and 70 to 85 percent on recognizable US silver coinage.
The practical rule of thumb splits three ways. Refiners handle large sorted lots of scrap sterling or unmarked silver. Coin shops handle junk silver bags and recognizable coins or bars. Pawn desks work only as a last resort or for immediate cash on a small pile.
Assay and refining costs, explained
Every scrap silver buyer above the pawn-desk tier prices in an assay cost, whether the seller sees the line item or not. Assay is the process of confirming the true silver content of a piece or a lot. There are two common methods.
The first method is X-ray fluorescence, or XRF. A handheld XRF gun measures the surface composition of the piece in seconds and gives a percentage readout for each detected metal. XRF is non-destructive and is standard for verifying stamped fineness on jewelry, flatware and bars. The gun itself is a significant capital cost for the buyer, and the surface-only reading can miss plated or filled pieces where the interior is base metal.
The second method is fire assay. A small chip of the sample is melted with a lead-based flux, the silver is extracted as a bead and weighed. Fire assay is destructive and slower but is the standard for confirming the silver content of a mixed melt lot. Refiners typically fire-assay the melted bar produced from a customer lot rather than the individual pieces, and the assay cost is either bundled into the refining fee or itemized on the settlement.
Refining charges cover the physical process of separating silver from the alloying metals, mostly copper. Different refiners publish different fee schedules, and the fee is usually stated as a per-ounce charge on the incoming gross weight or a per-lot minimum. Small lots see the minimum. Large lots see the per-ounce rate. Either way the fee lowers the paid melt percentage by a fixed amount per ounce.
Processing loss is a separate line. Real refining leaves a small residue of silver in slag and dust that is not fully recovered on the first pass. Refiners account for this by returning slightly less than 100 percent of the assayed silver, or by paying on 98 to 99.5 percent of the assay depending on the process.
The lot-size effect on the spread you see
Lot size is the single biggest driver of the paid melt percentage on scrap sterling. The reason is fixed cost. Every buyer pays roughly the same to sort, weigh, and assay a lot, whether the lot is 50 grams or 5000 grams. That fixed cost is spread across more silver on a large lot and less silver on a small one.
The chart below plots the illustrative paid melt percentage for a wholesale refiner across three lot-size tiers on a clean sorted sterling scrap lot. Small lots absorb the fixed cost less efficiently and see a wider spread. Large lots see a tighter spread because the fixed cost per ounce is smaller.
The other lot-size effect is on sorting. A clean lot sorted by the seller into sterling, coin silver, and silver plate typically sees a tighter spread than a mixed pile. Refiners charge either a sorting fee or a lower paid melt percentage on unsorted lots. If a seller can pre-sort with a magnet, a hallmark check, and a scale, the payout improves.
A worked example on a 100 gram sterling lot
The math below runs a full melt-and-payout calculation on a 100 gram lot of clean sterling silver flatware. The lot is small enough to represent a household clean-out and large enough to make the arithmetic obvious.
Picture an inheritor who consolidates a parent's silver flatware after downsizing. The lot is 100 grams gross weight of pieces all marked STERLING or 925. There are no odd pieces, no filled handles, no attached blades. The item is priced against an illustrative silver spot of 30 dollars per troy ounce.
- Gross weight of the lot: 100 grams sterling silver.
- Fineness of sterling: .925, so pure silver weight equals 100 grams times 0.925 equals 92.5 grams.
- Convert grams to troy ounces: 92.5 grams divided by 31.1035 grams per troy ounce equals 2.9740 troy ounces of pure silver.
- Illustrative silver spot price: 30 dollars per troy ounce.
- Computed melt value: 2.9740 troy ounces times 30 dollars per ounce equals 89.22 dollars in pure silver content. This is the ceiling. No commercial buyer pays 100 percent of this number.
- Illustrative refiner payout at 92 percent of melt on a small lot: 0.92 times 89.22 equals 82.08 dollars.
- Illustrative coin-shop payout at 70 percent of melt: 0.70 times 89.22 equals 62.45 dollars.
- Illustrative pawn-desk payout at 55 percent of melt: 0.55 times 89.22 equals 49.07 dollars.
The paid amount for the same 100 gram lot ranges from about 49 dollars to about 82 dollars across the three dealer types. That gap is what a seller keeps or loses by choosing which door to walk through. It has nothing to do with the underlying silver, which is worth exactly 89.22 dollars against the example 30 dollar spot in every case.
Substitute a different spot price to reprice. At 25 dollars per troy ounce the melt is 74.35 dollars, at 35 dollars per troy ounce the melt is 104.09 dollars, at 40 dollars per troy ounce the melt is 118.96 dollars. The refiner-shop-pawn payout multipliers stay in the same ranges, so the seller can pre-compute the payout at any spot before making a call.
Figures are illustrative, not a quote from any specific dealer, and not a promise of future silver prices. Spot prices are examples, not forecasts. This is not tax or investment advice. Consult a licensed advisor for personal decisions.
The lesson from this example generalizes. On a small sterling lot the choice of dealer matters more than the choice of day. A seller who calls three dealers and compares quotes on the same lot usually recovers most of the spread that a walk-in loses to convenience.
A six step check before you sell scrap silver
The steps below turn the melt formula into a repeatable check. Follow them in order and the seller keeps control of the transaction rather than trusting a walk-in dealer to compute the number honestly.
- Sort the pile by fineness. Separate sterling (STERLING or 925 marks) from coin silver (900 or COIN marks) from continental silver (800, 830, 835 marks) from US silver coinage (pre-1965 dimes, quarters, halves, 40 percent Kennedys, war nickels) from silver plate (EPNS, EP, TRIPLE PLATE, and named plate makers). Silver plate has no melt value and comes out of the pile entirely.
- Weigh each category separately on a scale that reads to the tenth of a gram. Kitchen scales or jewelry scales both work. Record the gross weight of each fineness category. Do not include stones, wooden handles, or attached steel blades in the sterling weight because a refiner will not pay for base material.
- Compute pure silver weight for each category. Multiply gross grams by the fineness decimal: 0.925 for sterling, 0.900 for coin silver, 0.800 for 800 silver. For US silver coins use the standard per-piece silver weight: 0.0723 troy ounces per pre-1965 dime, 0.1808 troy ounces per pre-1965 quarter, 0.3617 troy ounces per pre-1965 half, 0.1479 troy ounces per 1965 through 1970 Kennedy half, 0.0563 troy ounces per 1942 through 1945 war nickel.
- Convert to troy ounces where needed. Divide grams of pure silver by 31.1035 grams per troy ounce. Add up the troy ounces across all silver categories to get the total pure silver in the lot.
- Look up spot silver and compute melt. Pull the current silver spot price from a public quote source. Multiply the total troy ounces by the spot price per ounce. The result is the melt ceiling. Write it down and mark the time you pulled the spot.
- Call two or three dealers on the same day and compare quotes. Ask each dealer: what percentage of melt do you pay on this fineness, what spot reference do you use, and is that quote firm at the moment of sale or subject to change on delivery. Compare the dollar payout, not the percentage, because dealers quote spread differently. Take the best quote or split the lot by category between different dealers.
Any dealer who refuses to state a paid percentage of melt in writing before the coins or flatware leave the seller's hands is a dealer to walk away from. The Federal Trade Commission publishes consumer guidance on bullion and coin sales that reinforces the same principle: get the price mechanics in writing before the transaction.
Typical dealer spread by item type
The table below rolls up the paid melt percentage ranges observed across the common scrap silver categories and dealer types. Ranges are illustrative rather than absolute quotes. They reflect the balance of fixed cost, resale liquidity and per-piece assay for each pairing.
| Item type | Wholesale refiner (large clean lot) | Coin shop (typical walk-in) | Pawn desk or jewelry buyer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sterling silver flatware / holloware (.925) | 90 to 97 percent | 60 to 80 percent | 50 to 70 percent |
| Coin silver flatware (.900, pre-1870 US) | 88 to 95 percent | 60 to 80 percent | 45 to 65 percent |
| Continental 800 silver | 85 to 93 percent | 55 to 75 percent | 40 to 60 percent |
| US pre-1965 90 percent silver coins | 92 to 97 percent | 90 to 95 percent | 70 to 85 percent |
| 1965-1970 40 percent Kennedy halves | 85 to 92 percent | 80 to 90 percent | 60 to 75 percent |
| 1942-1945 war nickels | 85 to 92 percent | 80 to 90 percent | 55 to 75 percent |
| Recognizable refiner bars / rounds (.999) | 95 to 99 percent | 93 to 98 percent | 80 to 92 percent |
| American Silver Eagle / Canadian Maple | 95 to 99 percent | 93 to 98 percent | 80 to 92 percent |
| Silver plate (EPNS, EP, plate makers) | Zero | Zero | Zero |
Illustrative ranges reflect fixed sorting, assay and refining costs at each dealer tier, plus resale liquidity. Ranges are not quotes and vary by refiner, by silver spot on the day, and by whether the lot is pre-sorted by the seller. Sources: general refiner published fee-schedule structure; Federal Trade Commission consumer guidance on bullion transactions; industry-standard silver content per coin. Checked August 2026.
Silver plate is the one row where the number is not a range. Refiners do not pay for silver plate because the silver coating is too thin to justify processing. Antique dealers may pay for a decorative plated piece as a decorative object, but the payout is unrelated to silver content.
Where antique and maker premiums exist
Scrap silver value is a floor on what a piece is worth, not a ceiling. Some pieces carry a genuine antique or maker premium above melt. The scrap desk pays only the melt percentage.
A collector, an auction house, or an antique dealer may pay several multiples of melt for the same piece if the maker, pattern, or provenance matters. Premiums are qualitative rather than quantitative on this page because published price guides and auction records are the authoritative source for specific pieces.
Sterling flatware from recognized American silversmiths sometimes carries a modest premium in specific patterns. Tiffany, Georg Jensen, Reed and Barton "Francis I," Gorham "Chantilly," Wallace "Grand Baroque," and International Silver "Prelude" are examples of patterns that trade at collectible pricing rather than scrap pricing in complete matched sets. Broken sets and single pieces usually revert closer to melt.
Antique English hallmarked silver from the Georgian, Regency or early Victorian periods often carries a strong premium over melt when hallmarks are clear, condition is original, and provenance is documented. The Wallace Collection, English auction houses like Christie's and Sotheby's, and specialist dealers set the reference prices. A local scrap desk pays melt regardless.
Signed studio silver from twentieth-century makers, sterling holloware from the Arts and Crafts period, and religious or ceremonial pieces sometimes carry premiums that far exceed scrap value. Any piece with a maker's mark from a recognized silversmith deserves a check with a specialist dealer or an appraisal before the piece goes to a scrap desk. The Federal Trade Commission publishes consumer guidance on bullion and coin sales that emphasizes verifying the value of collectible items separately from bullion content.
Red flags and honest limits
Not every buyer is honest, and not every price posted on a public site reflects the actual paid percentage. A few warning signs come up often enough to bear listing.
The first is a quote given without a spot reference. A dealer who says "we pay 20 dollars a gram for sterling" is not quoting a percentage of melt. That kind of flat quote can be a fair deal when spot is high and a very poor deal when spot is low. Insist on a paid percentage of melt against the day's real spot, not a flat dollar per gram number.
The second is high-pressure sorting on-site. Some buyers accept a bag of scrap, sort it out of view, and return with a lower fineness classification than the seller expected. A silver-plate reclassification of a piece the seller believed was sterling costs the seller everything on that piece. The remedy is to pre-sort at home with a hallmark check and a magnet before the pile leaves the house.
The third is a quoted percentage that is not honored at final payment. Reputable dealers write the paid percentage on the intake ticket and stand behind it. Any buyer whose posted percentage differs from what appears on the final settlement without a documented reason is a dealer to walk away from. This is particularly common with online mail-in services that quote a headline percentage and then charge assay, processing and inspection fees against it.
The honest limits of this page: every dollar figure is a computation from a stated spot price, not a quote from a dealer, not a forecast, and not investment advice. Silver spot moves continuously during market hours. Real dealer percentages vary by lot size, by region, by day and by relationship. The ranges in the table above are common patterns rather than commitments. Anyone selling a significant lot should compare same-day quotes from three or more buyers before committing.
Silver held for retirement is a different topic entirely. IRA silver has to sit at .999 fineness or better in an approved depository, and scrap silver sold to a refiner does not enter the IRA framework at all. That topic is covered in our silver IRA fineness explainer rather than on this page.
Scrap silver questions, answered
How do I calculate scrap silver value at home?
Weigh the item on a scale that reads to the tenth of a gram. Multiply gross weight in grams by the fineness decimal: 0.925 for sterling, 0.900 for coin silver, 0.800 for 800 silver. Divide by 31.1035 grams per troy ounce to convert to troy ounces of pure silver. Multiply troy ounces by the current silver spot price in dollars per troy ounce. The result is the melt ceiling. Dealers pay a percentage of that ceiling.
Why do dealers pay less than the melt value?
Every commercial buyer has fixed costs for sorting, weighing, assay, refining, and reselling. Those costs are covered by the spread between the paid amount and the true melt. Wholesale refiners buying large clean lots pay closest to melt, typically 90 to 97 percent. Retail coin shops and pawn desks pay a wider spread because their per-transaction cost is higher and their lots are smaller.
What is a fair price for scrap sterling silver today?
Fair for a small sterling lot walked into a coin shop is around 60 to 80 percent of melt. Fair for a large clean sorted sterling lot shipped to a wholesale refiner is 90 to 97 percent of melt. Compute the melt ceiling yourself from grams times 0.925 divided by 31.1035 times the day's silver spot, then compare paid quotes against that number as a percentage.
Do coin shops pay more than jewelry stores for silver?
Usually yes on recognizable silver: coin shops pay closer to melt on US 90 percent junk silver coins, listed refiner bars, and sovereign coins because those items resell quickly at a modest markup. Jewelry stores and pawn desks tend to pay lower percentages because their inventory model relies on retail resale of jewelry rather than bullion, and small scrap lots do not fit their model efficiently.
What is the difference between spot price and dealer buy price?
Spot price is the wholesale reference silver price quoted in dollars per troy ounce on the LBMA benchmark or the COMEX near-month futures contract. Dealer buy price is what a specific dealer will actually pay for scrap silver on a specific day, always below spot after adjusting for the item's fineness, the dealer's spread, and any refining or assay charges.
Is silver plate worth anything as scrap?
Essentially no. Silver plate is a thin silver coating over base metal (typically nickel silver, copper or Britannia metal). The coating is too thin to justify the cost of stripping and refining. Refiners do not pay for silver plate as scrap. Some antique or decorative plated pieces retain value as decorative objects, but that value is unrelated to silver content.
How do I know if I have sterling or silver plate?
Check for a fineness stamp. Sterling silver is marked STERLING, 925, or (on English pieces) a lion passant hallmark. Silver plate is marked EPNS, EP, TRIPLE PLATE, QUADRUPLE PLATE, A1, or with a named plate maker like Rogers Bros or Community. If the item has no fineness mark and is heavy for its size, it is probably plate over base metal. A magnet test helps: silver is not magnetic. Base metal often is.
Should I sell scrap silver at a pawn shop?
Usually no if there is any alternative. Pawn shops routinely pay 50 to 70 percent of melt on sterling and 70 to 85 percent on recognizable silver coinage. Coin shops usually pay a better percentage on the same items, and wholesale refiners pay the best percentage on large clean lots. Use a pawn shop only for immediate cash on a small pile with no time to compare quotes.
Sources
- Sterling silver composition: 92.5 percent silver and 7.5 percent other metals, minimum millesimal fineness 925 (Wikipedia summary of the silver-standards literature). Checked August 2026.
- Millesimal fineness for silver, including .999 fine (LBMA Good Delivery), .958 Britannia, .925 sterling, .900 coin silver, .800 continental and .350 US war nickel. Checked August 2026.
- Silver as an investment (formerly Junk silver): silver spot quoted in dollars per troy ounce on LBMA and COMEX; standard COMEX silver futures contract represents 5000 troy ounces. Checked August 2026.
- London Bullion Market Association, Good Delivery specification for accredited silver bars and refiners. Checked August 2026.
- Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Advice: Investing in Bullion and Bullion Coins (bullion transaction guidance, verify fineness, get pricing in writing). Checked August 2026.
- FINRA, Investment Fraud: Precious Metals (retail investor guidance on precious metals transactions). Checked August 2026.
- Silver Institute, Silver Supply and Demand (annual global silver demand mix, industrial and investment). Checked August 2026.
