Adventures Selling Sterling

I agree with 007 an take the best you can get now. Hugh end retail sales of one year plus wreak of one word, stagnant.....

Sometimes you got to get the most you can get when you operate in short positions like 007 and keep things moving.....

Atleast I do on ebay anyway but you can only go so low til your into neg money via fees and such....

Reason I put start bid where I need to be as I am way to small to list 24-7 starting low like Scottsdale silver for example.....

Wish I could.....

Silver is so high now most pieces are worth more to melt than actual collector item.

Yes, there is a lot of sterling hollowware that is worth more than silver spot. Premiums come from certain makers, where it was made and the demand for the product. You can have a sugar bowl made in England circa 1790 and depending on who made it and what it looks like you may only get spot or a small pinch above. But that same size creamer made by a US Colonial silversmith, this creamer could bring 10 times or 100 times silver value. Then there are the more recent but desirable items made by Tiffany & Company, Cartier, Roy-croft and many, many more.

Just like what happened with common Morgans. Silver goes up, they go up. You have a low grade, high mintage common Morgan and it will only bring silver value. At a good auction it could sell for 40 dollars but by time you pay your auction fees you could wind up getting less than silver value. Auction houses take anywhere from 10 percent (usually over 5k items) to as much as 50 percent (usually items under 50 dollars). Let's say you have a tea set that scraps at 1000 dollars and it was made by S.Kirk & Sons but is not the most sought after pattern. I'd be willing to bet 99 percent of bidders will be using scrap value as a bidding barometer. And in the event the set brings 1300 dollars, after sellers fees you're looking at 1040 dollars (at a 20 percent premium). Then you may have to wait as much as 30 days for your money. In the state of Virginia the law gives the seller 30 days to pay a consignor. Now look at it from the buyers view. If there is a buyers premium (15 - 22 percent) this has to be factored into the final hammer price. So if the bidder paid 1300 he may have to add another 195 dollars. And if the bidder doesn't have a tax ID that'll cost another 5 percent of more. Final price = about 1520 dollars. Who's gonna pay that for 1000 dollars scrap value? Not many.

Nothing is etched in stone and there is always the one or two people who overpay. But like most cash cows, they only have so much money to burn through.

What it boils down to is as a seller, if you are happy with what you got, you got a good deal. Same goes with the buyer. If you are happy with your purchase, you got a good deal. Life's too short to get BUYERS REMORSE or SELLERS REMORSE.

I forgot about the coin silver buyers. Some people see a stamp COIN SILVER and they freak out. It's still silver. In my opinion the big price jump would be by who made it not the coin silver mark. I've scrapped my share of coin silver utensils.

Back in 2008, I sold a silver repousse coin silver creamer made by Andrew Ellicot Warner circa 1820. He and his father were silversmiths from Maryland. It was sold at Skinners Auction in Boston. I don't remember what the piece weighed (I think around 4 ounces) but it sold for 1900 dollars. What was silver in 08? About 15 dollars per ounce. That was a huge markup over silver value. After the auction house took their share I was left with 1501 dollars. I found the creamer during a friends house clean out so we split the final auction value. Not bad for free. It only cost my knowledge. I could have snookered him out of the creamer and bought it for scrap and he would have never known. But if you start scr*wing your friends, all you'll have left are enemies.

Indeed so. This is an important lesson for anyone who wants to be successful in business and it is all too often over-looked.

Not sure how much you know about coin silver items so I'll start with the basics. There was a time when many silversmiths relied on silver coins as their raw material. Items made from coins are referred to as coin silver. The only items I have found in my area that can be identified as coin silver have been forks & spoons, with the vast majority being spoons. I'd like to find something like a creamer, cup, coffee/tea pot, or decorative item.

There's the problem with having an American viewpoint as opposed to being more world oriented. I should have pointed out that coin silver is generally a term applied to items made by American silversmith's. I think it was in the late 1800's when American silversmiths shifted to sterling, mainly due to the fact that coin silver(90%) was considered inferior to european items that were sterling(92.5%)