Weigh All Your Options with Silver

In the current economy, the prices for gold and silver have been going through the roof, and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. It’s hard to believe that only a few years ago an ounce of silver was only about $5 and gold was about $300.
Those prices have more than tripled to about $15.50 an ounce for silver and around $1,000, and some experts are expecting even higher prices in the near future, perhaps $23-25 for silver and $1,200-1,400 for gold.
Even at those prices, silver is undervalued, lower that the traditional 16-1 ratio that it usually maintains with gold. In other words, gold should be valued sixteen times more than silver. That means silver could soar well above the $50 peak it hit in the 1980s.
All this is creating a tremendous amount of pressure on the public to sell their precious metals. While the price of gold affects the estate jewelry market, it’s the price of silver that will have the greatest impact on the market for antiques in general.
The bulk of items in antique shops date more or less from 50 to 150 years old, and counting back, those days were silver days.
Silver was extremely popular from the late 18th Century and throughout the 19th Century, especially among the Victorians.
Silver jewelry, especially Mexican silver, was fashionable in the late 1920 through the 1940s. Silver tableware and decorative
accessories were popular again in the post-war ‘40s and ‘50s. Silver jewelry came back again in the 1960s.
So, it’s a cinch you’ll find these things in many of today’s antique shops.
Before you sell your silver for weight, you should pass it by some antique dealers first to see if your silver may be more than silver, and may be more valuable for its artistry and craftsmanship, its age, rarity or historical significance.
You don’t sell Tiffany or Georg Jensen silver for weight, of course, nor Spratling, among those artists working Mexico back in the ‘30s. And there are other artists too numerous to mention here. Nor do you sell old Irish silver, or any Russian silver at all.
Do you know how old your silver is? Could it be Georgian, from the late 1700s? That would certainly be worth more than its weight.
Is your silver coin silver? It contains less silver than sterling (.900 instead of .925), but it is valuable as historic Americana, made only from colonial times until around the 1840s, and pieces by certain silversmiths can be very valuable.
Not all American silver patterns are created equal, either.
The top ten patterns include: Gorham’s Buttercup, Chantilly, Strasbourg, Kirk’s Repousse, Towle’s Old Master, Reed and Barton’s Francis I, and Classic Rose, Wallace’s Grand Baroque, and International’s Royal Danish.
Check the web sites of Silver Queen and Replacements Limited. Of course, they charge a premium of about 20 percent as a sort of built-in finder’s fee, but you will get the idea that some flatware patterns are definitely worth more than their weight.
If you would like an appraisal of your old things, silver or otherwise, and advice about when, where and how to sell them, sign up for one or both of the upcoming Appraisal Nights at the Wetlands Institute. They are both on Tuesday evenings, Feb. 23 and Mar.23, at 7 pm. Call the Wetlands at (609) 368-1211 for more information, or look for one of the flyers that should be circulating around town soon.
Arthur Schwerdt, a certified appraiser, is the author of “The Antique Story Book: Finding the Real Value of Old Things,” and co-owner of The August Farmhouse Antiques on Route 9 in Swainton. Send your comments, questions and appraisal requests to: aschwerdt@cmcherald.com.