Help ID and questions about scrapping

Hi everyone, I found this earlier this week and I haven’t had luck figuring out the maker yet. If anyone can figure it out, I would definitely appreciate it!

Second part of my question: does anyone have experience scrapping silver? I’m just curious to hear what your experience was like, this one is in pretty bad shape so I’m considering scrapping it instead of keeping it.

 

Thanks Davey, I hadn’t thought of using ebay as an option. I’ve watched some videos about smashing out the cement so I have to give that a try. Part of me is really curious which parts of the candle holder is cement filled, the bottom clearly is but the top feels very solid to me.

 

I believe the maker is Mueck-Carey Co. I had a modern candleholder that I scrapped. The solid feeling arms were actually thin silver over metal rods.

http://www.925-1000.com/americansilver_M6.html

 

Wow, both comments are VERY helpful to me, thank you very much!!

 

If I remember correctly - sterling silver must be .925% silver that is the stamp 925 over 1000 - so weigh that piece and then figure out how much of that weight is silver than change the weight of the silver to ounces and multiply buy the price of silver per ounce - today it's 16.33$/oz. That will at least give you scrap value.

I don't know what the reinforced with cement means - that doesn't sound good

 

I sell my precious metal items in poor condition at the local coin shop and, if necessary, they break up the pieces for me. If you sell to shop of some sort (coin, pawn, etc.) do shop around; price paid will vary.

Debora

 

Keep in mind that silver goes by Troy ounces which are a bit heavier than a postal ounce.

I don't scrap much but I believe you have to subtract the alloy which would be -7.5%. The refiner I used last pays 90% of that if I remember correctly. So actual Troy weight, minus 7.5%, minus 10%. That's what I can get using that refiner (unless they've changed).

 

That piece will have around 2 to 3 ounces of silver total after removing the weighted and reinforced portions (metal rods) I use this site for the value of the scrap.
https://www.silverrecyclers.com/

 

Right - without looking it up - a dry weight ounce is 28 grams while a troy ounce is like 32 grams?

 

I appreciate all the knowledge shared, helps me to keep my expectations reasonable.

 

There are online calculators that will figure out your scrap value based on today's prices. Just plug in the weight and it does the work for you.

I've sold my scrap on ebay a couple of times when I needed the money quickly. I put it on as a buy it now at a few dollars less than scrap value, and it goes fast. If you're not in a hurry, you'd probably get a little more putting it in an auction.

Most of my scrap though goes to a refinery down state that gives a fair amount.

 

Thanks everyone. I took the plunge and dismantled it. I just used some pliers and peeled it apart. Sad to see something destroyed, but it really wasn't worth saving, the condition it was in factored with it being weighted and I just didn't enjoy it's look. I also wanted to learn how to scrap, and learn I did! It wasn't too difficult at all. I'm now eyeing some of my "ugly pieces" that might meet the same fate in the future. After I got all the rods and cement off the silver, it turned out to be 70 grams of sterling. Bravo to coreya for nailing the silver estimate; very impressive.

 

Experience is the best teacher. Most of us have scrapped that 1950s wedding sterling giftware at one point or another. I call it "sterling tin foil" because the metal used is so thin it might as well be the same foil I use to cover food in the oven.

 

28.35 if you count twigs and seeds....

 

12 ounces of clean, formerly weighted. Probably nearly 30 candle holders partly squished. Last time I sold for scrap it was $48/oz. It is the lowest it's been in years. I'll wait for it to go up some. May only be a couple decades.

 

last time silver was that high was 2011..

 

I've only scrapped silver maybe once in my life. I had a whole heap of useless silver lying around which I knew nobody was ever going to buy. So I hauled it all off to the scrapper to get rid of it. Among the scrap were two silver weighted candlesticks.

It said "CEMENT FILLED" on the base. With the aide of a hammer and tongs, we smashed them open and the silver rolled off like tin-foil. What was underneath was actually some sort of brown, toffee-coloured stuff, like they'd been filled with butterscotch or something. The lady who did the scrapping had never seen it before.

 

It's called "pitch" and was used to fill many hollow metal pieces as added weight and a stabilizer for thin metals.