With all of the talk about the value of gold jewelry, silver is often thought of as gold’s poorer cousin. But that is inaccurate. Silver jewelry is valuable too, and businesses that buy silver jewellery will value yours. The first step in the process is to have your jewelry appraised, and here are three good reasons why.
Purity and worth
Since silver is a soft metal and is easily worn out it is usually mixed with another metal alloy like copper to make it more durable and wearable. You cannot tell looking at it necessarily what the purity is, but a mark on the jewellery will help. If it is high quality, it might have a number marker that denotes purity or a marker’s mark. A mark of 925 indicates sterling silver, for example.
However, even if your piece of silver jewellery is not sterling or is unmarked, it can still be of value. Silver purity can be measured at a number of values, including 80%, 92.5%, 95.8% and 99.9%. Of course, 99.9% is the highest purity, which is the same kind of silver as that used in silver coins.
Pure silver jewellery can be easily damaged so you may have some pieces that look to be in very bad shape. Don’t be misled by the condition if you haven’t kept them in excellent storage conditions. Marked or unmarked, damaged or not, you can only know the real value after a jewellery appraisal.
Value of your silver jewellery
When you do bring in your silver jewellery for appraisal, there are three kinds of values that you might want to get, depending on how important the jewellery is to you as a sentimental piece, or the actual cash value. The three values are: cash value, replacement value, and insurance value.
The cash value will tell you how much you can get for your piece in the market if you were to sell it. The replacement value is the market value that an insurance company will pay at the time of the loss. And, the agree value is an amount that you and your insurance company can agree upon should you lose the piece of jewellery.
Not all pieces of your silver jewellery that you bring in for an appraisal will be worth insuring, or even worth that much. But until you have your silver jewellery appraised, you can’t really know. You might have some that are worth more, or less, than you thought.
Scrap is worth something too
Businesses will buy silver jewellery for the scrap value alone. Your silver jewellery in the end might not be worth much, but as scrap metal it will be worth more than it is sitting in a bag at the bottom of your closet. And, when they buy silver from you and recycle it, you are helping the environment.
Silver and metals have always been recycled, melted down to make new pieces or to use in other products. The price for scrap of your silver jewellery will be determined by the purity and the weight, and the price of silver on the day. Once you piece is appraised, you will have a better idea of your options.
If you have silver jewellery that you would like to sell or you want appraised, call or visit Pinto Gold at 2570 Yonge Street today.
