Silver price per gram is about $1.74, and sterling silver pays less
Silver fell to about $54 an ounce on October 23, 2026, which puts pure silver near $1.74 a gram and sterling near $1.61. Here's how to weigh your pieces, work out melt value, and spot a lowball offer.
Silver had a rough month. At 7:15 a.m. Eastern on October 23, 2026, an ounce traded at $53.98, down from $67.05 a month earlier, according to Fortune's daily silver tracker. That puts the silver price per gram for pure metal at roughly $1.74.
Most silver in a kitchen drawer isn't pure, though. Sterling is 92.5% silver, so a gram of it holds about $1.61 of metal, and that's before any buyer takes a cut. Weigh first, do the math second, and you'll know a fair offer when you hear one.
Why the silver price per gram dropped this month
Fortune's numbers show silver down 19.49% from a month ago but still up 10.36% from a year ago, when an ounce sold for $48.91. So if you sold a box of spoons last October you got less than you would today, and if you sold in late September you got a lot more. Prices also move inside a single day: APMEX quoted $54.96 by midday on the same Friday.
Silver at $53.98 an ounce works out to $1.74 per gram of pure metal. Every 1% move in spot moves your scrap value by the same 1%.
Check the silver spot price on the day you sell
A quote from last week can be off by several dollars an ounce. Pull up a live silver spot price the morning you plan to sell and write it down, because the buyer will price your lot against the number on their own screen.
Silver price per ounce is quoted in troy ounces
The silver price per ounce you see on the news is for one troy ounce of .999 fine silver, with no dealer premium added. A troy ounce is 31.1035 grams. The ounce on your kitchen scale is 28.35 grams, which is about 9% lighter, and mixing the two up is the most common pricing mistake people make at home.
Quick troy ounce conversions to keep handy
If your scale only shows kitchen ounces, switch it to grams or run the reading through our grams to ounces converter. For the full story on the two ounce systems, see how many grams are in a troy ounce.
Sterling silver price per gram by purity
Not every piece marked silver has the same amount of silver in it. MetalCharts listed these melt values with spot at $54.18 an ounce on October 23, 2026.
| Purity | Silver content | Per gram |
|---|---|---|
| .999 fine silver | 99.9% | $1.74 |
| .958 Britannia | 95.8% | $1.67 |
| .925 sterling | 92.5% | $1.61 |
| .900 coin silver | 90% | $1.57 |
| .800 European | 80% | $1.39 |
Reading the hallmark before you weigh
US 90% coins dated 1964 and earlier carry no purity mark at all, so the date is your clue. If a piece has no stamp and isn't an old coin, get it tested before you count on it.
How to work out silver melt value on a kitchen scale
Melt value is what the silver inside a piece is worth at today's spot price. The math takes about a minute once you have an accurate weight in grams, so make sure your scale reads true first with our nickel calibration check.
100 grams of sterling holds 92.5 grams of pure silver. At $54.18 spot, that's $161.13 in melt value before a buyer deducts anything.
Weigh only the silver in weighted pieces
Candlesticks, hollow knife handles and some serving pieces are filled with cement or pitch, or carry steel blades. Buyers deduct that filler, so a heavy knife can hold surprisingly little silver. Weigh forks, spoons and solid trays at full weight, and treat anything hollow as a guess until it's tested.
How much is sterling silver worth once a buyer takes a cut?
This is where the money actually goes. A May 2026 guide from Resident found serious buyers pay about 70 to 90 percent of melt, with coin and bullion dealers usually at 80 to 90 percent. Jewelry stores and walk-in gold buyers tend to sit at the bottom.
| Offer level | Percent | On 100 g |
|---|---|---|
| Full melt value | 100% | $161.13 |
| Top dealer offer | 90% | $145.02 |
| Typical dealer offer | 80% | $128.90 |
| Low serious offer | 70% | $112.79 |
On a 1,000 gram flatware set, the gap between a 70% and a 90% offer is about $322. That's real money for one phone call to a second buyer. Timing matters too: the same 100 grams of sterling held roughly $199 of silver a month ago and about $145 a year ago.
What eats into a scrap silver price
When sterling silver value beats melt
Signed pieces can sell for far more than their weight. Tiffany, Cartier, Georg Jensen, Buccellati and Paul Storr pieces, plus hallmarked Georgian and Victorian silver from named makers, may carry premiums, so check the maker's mark before you hand anything over for scrap.
Ask every buyer two questions: which spot price are you using, and what percentage of melt are you paying? A fair offer answers both without hesitation.
Old coins and the price of gold and silver today
Pre-1965 US dimes, quarters and half dollars are 90% silver. One dollar in face value holds about 0.715 troy ounces, which MetalCharts valued at $38.74 at Friday's spot. Our coin weight guide shows how to sort silver coins from clad ones by weight alone.
If you're clearing out a jewelry box with both metals in it, check the price of gold and silver today side by side, since gold pieces are worth far more per gram. Our gold price per gram guide walks through karat math the same way.
Scrap silver price questions people ask
What is the 925 silver price per gram right now?
With spot at $54.18 on October 23, 2026, a gram of 925 sterling held about $1.61 of silver. Expect a buyer to pay roughly $1.13 to $1.45 a gram after their cut.
How much is a sterling fork worth?
Weigh it. A 40 gram sterling fork holds 37 grams of pure silver, worth about $64 in melt value at Friday's spot. Multiply your own reading the same way, since forks vary a lot by pattern and size.
Is silver plate worth anything as scrap?
Very little. Pieces marked EPNS, EP or quadruple plate carry only a thin coating of silver over base metal, so refiners usually won't pay for them by weight.
Need to weigh a drawer of silver before you call a buyer? Download Scale for Grams and get an AI-powered weight estimate from a photo in seconds, then run the melt math above. Get the app here: iOS.
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