Featured At what point do you scrap sterling?

Hey all I have amassed quite a bit of mexican 925 jewelry. With silver prices going up I began to think of scrapping some of it.... I never scrap anything and I actually despise it but I can go down the street and get 85% of scrap weight in cash.... I've tried listing on ebay before and it sits forever and I get lowball offers like 65% of scrap weight even though they are nice pieces. What do you all think?

For gold I strictly only scrap if broken and not worth repairing or if modern junk.

 

could u use the cash.....scrap it all now !

keep any few pieces...older...or just ones u like....or Taxco....

there's more Mexican silver out there than u could ever hope to collect.... so keep finding new stuff..... or use the cash to look for more gold !!!

 

Much of the more recent Mexican "925" is not worth scrap
Consider the fees of selling

 

Sit on it a bit longer...my silver guru (Franklin Sanders) predicts $40 by the end of the year; a mere 5 1/2 months distant.

 

I'm sitting on most of mine too. The rule I use for precious metal is the 3m - Modern + Mass-produced = Melt it! Everything has been so thin on the ground out there lately that hoarding seems the best option for anything but true scrap.

 

Last time I sold for scrap was May 2009 at $48
but I'm getting anxious

 

Patience, Terry!

 

In 2009 it was a bubble, which burst. This time it is a slow appreciation of value of gold and silver.

 

Try selling it in a lot on eBay. Make sure “sterling silver” & “scrap” are in the title. Try an auction with the starting price at 100% current melt value. In the written description let people know starting bud is current melt price. You’ll want to include the total weight obviously. Even if it sells for opening bid you’ll be even with what the scrapper will pay you after eBay fees are taken out. There are two potential benefits, 1. Price may go higher 2. A collector or reseller will buy the lot and not melt the stuff. Ideally both will happen. If it doesn’t work you’re not out anything. If it works then….yay.

 

Also to answer your question I’m holding the line. Honestly I don’t even know at what price I’d sell. I like just having it. Surely a day will come when the price is high, I won’t sell, it will go back down, I’ll be kind of bummed, but really I will be secretly happy I still have my treasure. Then I’ll ogle it and know I did the right thing. Having it makes me happier than the reality of a big profit. Once I sell it if the price doesn’t go crazy low again it will be hard to acquire more. Catch 22 having things you can’t really afford to keep (because their value is so high and you need liquid more than a thing) and definitely can’t really afford to replace at market price.

 

This location pays 90%...... https://www.midwestrefineries.com/silver-buyer-brokers/

 

In my opinion (from personal experience) eBay isn’t the best deal out there. Consider the following:

Scenario 1: selling at full spot on eBay (this assumes someone will bid at full spot which is only likely if the market believes the spot price is on the rise). Assume you have $100 worth of silver: eBay will take a minimum of 14% for fees, and you will pay at least $7-8 for shipping with no insurance, so you’re getting only 78% of spot.

Scenario 2: find a local refinery, the best I’ve found so far is 90% of spot. You don’t have to list… you don’t have to deal with buyers… you don’t have to ship… you walk out the door with cash…

 

There's nothing much more intriguing and attractive than a box full of shiny silver knick knacks. My collection is up to about 120g. Not much but looking forward to watching it grow.

 

The op isn’t talking about low/average/damaged quality scrap holloware and flatware that no modern person wants as a functional item though. They are talking about a presumably small (weight wise) amount of wearable jewelry. Jewelry scrap lots do very well on eBay typically. They often sell well above their spot value. It’s not really scrappers that are buying them usually. It’s often dealers looking to break them up and resell the lots. Op has had a hard time selling the items individually but someone else may be optimistic about their resale potential. Personally I have an easy time moving Taxco jewelry at good prices but maybe ops jewelry for whatever reason isn’t as desirable. Even so job lots of wearable jewelry that also draw scrap eyes tend to do well, especially relative to scrap holloware lots. I do around 8.5k in sales a month on eBay on average over the last 4-5 years so dealing with costumers is just part of it for me. It’s not an issue 99.9% of the time. Customers are used to paying for their own shipping so you have 13% on average eBay fee only to contend with. So if you sell at spot you’re doing better than most refiners will pay. Obviously if it sells over spot which I would bet strongly this lot would then you’re doing better than a refiner. For a small amount of jewelry just driving to a refiner the fuel price will eat into your profits. Plus at the end of the day you’re not melting a bunch of wearable jewelry and you also don’t have to drive anywhere. In my experience unless you’re dealing with literal trash silver you can do better selling lots on eBay. Torn up candle sticks and damaged pieces I can see melting but stuff in good condition (even average quality) for me brings over melt 100% of the time on eBay. Wearable jewelry will far exceed melt in most cases. That’s just my experience though.

 

It’s fun no matter what size the stash is! Doesn’t matter if you’re counting in grams, ounces, pounds, or kilos. Humans are like crows kind of, we love shiny. A box of treasure has been coveted since we have been upright basically. It’s a great age when even a commoner can have a box or two of treasure.

 

Sorry, but I don't know if I follow what you are saying. The title of the question is "At what point do you scrap sterling?" which seemed to emphasize the frustrations of selling on eBay...a few thoughts on my end:

If someone has made it clear they have found the eBay process frustrating, I don't think I'm offering them any value by telling them how good my eBay sales are.

If someone says "I began to think of scrapping it" I'm going to give an answer assuming the silver will be treated like scrap. Your advice is definitely helpful too, but you are assuming the quality of the pieces, and I'm simply reading that they are considering scrap. And when you scrap something, it doesn't matter if it was your great great great aunties brooch or from a private Saudi Prince collection or if it's beat up metal; scrap is scrap and it has one price to it.

I don't understanding why you wrote at such length about what the author is and isn't asking, but I'm reading the original message and I'm not reading what you are here.

 

It says ONE DOLLAR
It is worth scrap