The four buyers, and the question that picks between them
To sell silver in Britain you choose between four kinds of buyer: a refiner or bullion dealer paying for the metal, a postal buyer working by return of post, an antiques dealer paying for the object, and a saleroom selling it for you. On a plain twentieth-century piece with no maker worth naming, all four are pricing the same metal, and the gap between them is each buyer’s margin. The choice starts to matter on a piece with a name on it, a date before 1830, or a form collectors chase, where the metal figure and the hammer figure are a multiple apart rather than a margin.
The first question is not where to sell, but whether the piece sells for its weight or for itself, and the scrap or auction guide sets out the half hour of weighing and reading that settles it. What follows assumes it has been done.
Where to sell silver, and when each buyer pays
| Buyer | What they want in front of them | How the price is fixed | When you are paid |
|---|---|---|---|
| Refiner or bullion dealer | The pieces on their own scale, and your identification | A stated percentage of the London benchmark for the day, on fine weight | Same day, by transfer |
| Postal buyer | A parcel and a declaration of what is in it | Their rate, quoted after they have weighed it | Days after it arrives, once you accept |
| Antiques dealer | The piece itself, marks readable | One offer for the object, which is negotiable | On the day |
| Saleroom | Photographs first, then the piece | Hammer, less commission, VAT and the per-lot charges | Four to six weeks after a sale that is weeks or months off |
Only the dealer’s offer can be argued with, because a dealer prices their own risk and knows what they would take. A refiner’s rate is published, and nobody knows a hammer price before the hammer falls.
Three weights describe one teapot
A quote can be built on any of them, and only the last is what the benchmark price refers to.
| Weight | What it covers | Where it is used |
|---|---|---|
| Gross | Everything that goes on the scale | A careless quote, and the figure a seller remembers |
| Net silver | Gross, less handles, glass liners, steel blades and the pitch in a loaded base | What the refiner melts |
| Fine | Net silver multiplied by the fineness, so 0.925 for sterling | What the London benchmark is quoted against |
A rate given “per ounce” needs one more question, because silver is priced in troy ounces of 31.1035 grams while a kitchen scale counts the avoirdupois ounce of 28.3495 grams. The gap is about a tenth, and a seller who does not know which ounce the quote uses cannot tell which way it falls. Ask for the rate per gram: the silver price page carries the benchmark per gram, per troy ounce and per kilo for 999, 958, 925, 800 and 500, so a quote can be checked at the counter.
Weigh every piece at home first and write the figure down, with a photograph of each one on the scale. A parcel first weighed after it has left you cannot be argued about later.
One teapot, two statutes, and a cash rule that changes at the border
A scrap metal dealer in England and Wales holds a licence, records the seller’s identity and is forbidden to pay in cash. Section 21 of the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 2013 defines scrap metal as old, waste or discarded metal, then lifts three things straight back out: gold, silver, and “any alloy of which 2 per cent or more by weight is attributable to gold or silver”. Sterling is 925 parts silver in a thousand, so a sterling teapot falls outside that Act, as does a 9 carat gold chain at 375. South of the border the buyer needs no scrap metal licence for it, keeps no record of the transaction under that Act, and pays cash if both sides want to.
Scotland is the other way round. Metal dealing there sits under Part II of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982, whose section 37 defines metal as “any metal (including any precious metal) and any alloy of any metals”, with no exclusion for silver. A Scottish metal dealer is licensed for the trade, and section 33A, in force since 1 September 2016, permits payment only by a cheque that cannot be transferred or by transfer to an account in the payee’s name. The section binds a dealer whose business is wholly or substantially buying metal for scrap. Such a dealer commits an offence by paying cash for that teapot, and so does the manager of the premises and anyone who makes the payment for them. An antiques dealer buying it as an object is outside the section.
One ceiling applies everywhere. HMRC requires a business that accepts or makes a cash payment of 10,000 euros or more for goods to register as a high value dealer before doing so, so a large parcel is settled by transfer wherever it is sold. A Scottish metal dealer must also record the seller’s name and address and how they were checked, which is why a passport is wanted there, and English refiners ask for one as their own policy.
Get the weight, the fineness and the rate in writing before the metal changes hands.
Why a saleroom calls an unmarked piece white metal
Send a piece with no hallmark to a saleroom and the catalogue describes it as white metal. That is the statute rather than a doubt about your piece. Section 1 of the Hallmarking Act 1973 makes it an offence, in the course of a trade or business, to apply to an unhallmarked article a description indicating that it is wholly or partly made of gold, silver, platinum or palladium, or to supply an article carrying such a description. The section defines “advertisement” to include a catalogue, a circular and a price list, and treats exposing an article for supply as offering to supply it. The exemptions sit in Schedule 1.
A private seller selling their own piece stands outside the section, which bites only on a trade or business. The dealer who buys it is inside it the moment they offer the piece on, which is why an unmarked piece trades on a tested fineness rather than as sterling. The six tests separate silver from electroplate at the kitchen table.
Posting it, and what the post pays if it goes missing
A postal buyer prices the metal after the parcel arrives, which puts the silver in somebody else’s hands before the figure is agreed. Get the rate against the benchmark in writing before posting, and read the compensation limit rather than assuming the service covers the contents.
Royal Mail’s Special Delivery Guaranteed by 1pm carries compensation of up to £750 as standard, with levels of up to £1,000 and up to £2,500 for £3 and £10 more, bought online or at a Post Office, and accepts parcels to 20 kg. That £2,500 is the ceiling on the item itself. The consequential loss cover of up to £10,000, sold only at a Post Office, pays for the knock-on cost of a loss, damage or delay, not the value of what was in the box. A canteen worth more goes with a carrier that will insure it, or it does not go. Ask for the certificate of posting and keep it.
The pieces that belong in a sale instead
Three descriptions take an object out of the metal market: a date before 1830, a maker whose initials collectors know, and a form collected for its own sake. The makers’ marks guide covers reading those initials and the registers that hold them.
The price records carry an Omar Ramsden footed bowl of 1928 that made £2,600 at hammer against an estimate of £1,200 to £1,800, and a plain Birmingham bachelor’s teapot of 1889 that made £180. Both figures are illustrative rather than particular sales, and the distance between them is the name.
Consigning costs commission, VAT on it, lotting, photography and insurance, listed in the auctions guide. The scrap or auction guide puts the point where those charges swallow the premium at around £150 of metal value.
Why a silver quote has a shelf life
The benchmark is set once each working day, by auction in London, so a metal quote is good for that day and no longer, and a Saturday quote is Friday’s figure. A buyer who offers a number on Monday and honours it on Friday carries the price risk for you, and has priced that in. Ask instead what percentage of the benchmark they pay on sterling by fine weight, a figure that holds while the metal moves.
Four quotes then become one comparable set. Ring a refiner, a bullion dealer and a local antiques dealer for that percentage, and ask the nearest saleroom for a hammer estimate from photographs. The gap between the best metal rate and that estimate is the whole decision, and collecting it takes a week.
Pull anything with a maker’s name or a pattern out of the parcel before any of those calls. The cutlery and silverware guide shows what a pattern and a name do to a figure that weight alone would have settled, and the scrap calculator gives the floor under everything left in the box.
