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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;afantiques, post: 106958, member: 25&quot;]I think I can just remember when silver items in salerooms were sold by the ounce. Bidding was a per ounce price for the piece, so a ten ounce piece would cost you ten times your bid. No buyer&#039;s premiums then.</p><p><br /></p><p>We still tend to do this when calculating what to bid. Just now the bid figure is the total, not the per ounce figure.</p><p><br /></p><p>20-30 years ago, when the silver price was less than half the present level, run of the mill silver pieces, Georgian, Victorian, were selling in general for around 10 pounds per ounce, that&#039;s about $15, or about twice the metal price at the time. </p><p><br /></p><p>Nowadays the premium in the sale room can be as little as a small negative number, in other words, slightly below the scrap value. This generally applies to foreign silver. I bought a nice 20 ounce US sterling bowl a couple of weeks ago for metal value, but the prejudice against foreign silver, which was very noticeable 20-30 years ago is much less apparent nowadays. It is no longer so easy to make an immediate turn on the metal value alone. I blame the internet, but without it I&#039;d not have the money to be buying anyway.</p><p><br /></p><p>At present, only really outstanding or really early pieces are making the premiums over metal value that were common 20 years ago. </p><p><br /></p><p>The market itself may have changed. A soilid silver teaset is no longer on anyone&#039;s wish list, the cutlery drawer is full of stainless steel instead of silver, and other things need to be useful and decorative as well as precious metal.</p><p><br /></p><p>Much material must have been melted down in the recent silver price spike, but due to lower demand the increasing rarity of what were more common items is not showing in the prices. It may only be old hoarders like me that are supporting the market.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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