Selling their silver & coins
Somewhere there's a box: silver dollars, a bag of old coins, grandma's flatware, a tube of bullion. Now it has to become money for care, and you have no idea what it's worth or how not to get fleeced. This page is the whole thing, calmly. You don't need to become an expert; you need six rules and one good morning.
1. Know the day's silver price before you sell. It moves every second. Open Kitco or Trading Economics on your phone and note the "spot" price per ounce. That one number is your anchor against a lowball. 2. Get more than one offer. Two or three quotes, gotten the same day, is the single best defense there is. A buyer who knows you'll compare behaves very differently from one who knows you won't.
Six rules so you don't get ripped off
- You sell below spot. That's normal, not a scam. The dealer has to resell it, so they pay a bit under the melt price. Fair is roughly 90–98% of spot for recognizable coins and bars (see the next section). A pawn shop offering 60% is not competitive: walk away.
- Never let a buyer come to you, and never ship first to a stranger. "We'll come to your home" ads, social-media and Craigslist "buyers," and mail-in "cash for gold" kits from TV are where nearly all the fleecing happens. Sell in a real shop or to an established online dealer, never to someone who found you.
- Get every offer in writing, itemized. A real buyer will happily write down the spot price they used, the weight, and the total. Anyone who won't is telling you something.
- Watch the scale and the unit. Silver is weighed in troy ounces, not kitchen ounces. Confirm which they're using.
- Set a walk-away number before you go, and keep it in your pocket. Decide the lowest total you'll accept (a simple rule: 90% of your rough melt estimate). If nobody beats it, you keep the silver and try another day. Deciding in advance means zero pressure-decisions at the counter.
- Bring ID, bring a friend, take a check. Dealers are legally required to record who they buy from: that's normal compliance, not a red flag. A second person lowers both the safety risk and the stress. For anything sizable, take a check over cash: safer to carry, and it's your paper trail for taxes.
What it's actually worth
Most silver is sold for its melt value: how much pure silver is in it, times the day's price. You do not have to calculate this perfectly to avoid a bad deal, because the day's quotes protect you. But a rough estimate sets your walk-away number. What a fair offer looks like, as a share of spot:
- Government bullion coins (American Silver Eagles, Canadian Maple Leafs): the most liquid, best price. Around 100% of spot, sometimes a touch above.
- Generic rounds & bars stamped ".999": roughly 95–98% of spot.
- "Junk silver" (ordinary US dimes, quarters, half-dollars dated 1964 or earlier are 90% silver): in this market, often right around spot or a little below. Not a scam; it reflects a refining backlog.
- Sterling flatware & jewelry (marked ".925" or "STERLING"): about 80–90% of melt, because it has to be refined first.
If you want a rough total before you go: $1 of face value in pre-1965 US coins holds about 0.715 troy ounces of silver, so a $100 face bag is roughly 71 ounces. Multiply ounces by the day's spot price for a ballpark. (A free junk-silver calculator like Coinflation does the math for you.) Do not confuse "face value" with worth: a $1,000 face-value bag of junk silver is about 715 ounces, worth many thousands of dollars. Face value is just the number stamped on the coins.
Where to sell: local vs. online
The right venue depends mostly on how much you have.
- A small amount (a handful of coins, a few pieces of sterling): a local coin shop, in person. Online dealers have minimums that make small lots not worth the shipping. Get two or three written quotes the same morning and take the best.
- A larger amount (roughly $1,000+, and especially $10,000+): an established online dealer can beat local prices, because they compete nationally. You mail the silver insured and get paid in a few days. Below are four that are decades-established, A+ rated with the Better Business Bureau, and provide insured shipping.
All four dealers below are genuinely long-established and A+ with the BBB, and you will very likely get paid and not defrauded. But an A+ grade mostly reflects how a company answers complaints, not that customers are uniformly happy: all four carry real complaints, mostly about shipping delays and slow communication, especially when the market is busy. And there's a structural catch worth knowing before you start: once you "lock" a price it's a binding deal you can't cancel, and then you mail your silver and wait a few days for payment. Mitigate both by only locking a price when you can ship that same day or the next, and always shipping insured. Do this and it's a well-worn, safe routine, not a gamble.
Four vetted online buyers
Verified on each dealer's own site, July 2026. Minimums and policies change, and buyback prices move every day: confirm the live number on their page or by phone before you lock.
- APMEX (apmex.com sell page · 800-375-9006). Best all-around for most sellers. Lock your price online or by phone; they send a free insured shipping label and pay 1–2 business days after they verify. 25+ years in business. Buys bullion and coins, and now takes old jewelry and silverware through a separate appraisal-kit process.
- JM Bullion (jmbullion.com sell page · 844-258-2538). The one true do-it-yourself tool: you can lock a price online 24/7 without ever talking to anyone, which helps if calling feels stressful. Minimum is $1,000. They email an insured label and pay, typically 3–7 business days after receipt. Buys jewelry, scrap, and silverware too. Their site may show a "high demand" delay notice: expect slower processing when it does.
- SD Bullion (sdbullion.com sell page · 800-294-8732). Lowest minimum among the ship-in dealers, about 20 ounces of silver. Known for low premiums; customer-service reviews are a bit more mixed than the others. Every incoming package is recorded on camera, which protects both sides.
- Money Metals Exchange (moneymetals.com sell page · 800-800-1865). No flat dollar minimum; genuinely useful because they publish the buyback price on every product page, so you can see what they'll pay before you commit. They instruct you to ship by USPS Registered Mail insured for full value. Once placed, a sell order is non-cancelable: only commit when you're sure.
Other reputable dealers exist, but for a clean, low-stress decision these four are more than enough. You don't need to compare ten sites.
Mailing it safely
- Use the dealer's prepaid, insured label when they offer one. It's the simplest, and the insurance is built in.
- If you ship on your own, use USPS Registered Mail and insure it for the full value. It's the mail service built to carry valuables; the dealers themselves point you to it.
- Pack it plain and quiet. A new, unmarked box; fill the empty space so nothing rattles; seal the seams well. Do not write "silver," "coins," or the dealer's name on the outside. Keep your tracking number, require a signature, and photograph the contents before you seal it.
The tax part, kept simple
Two things are true and worth knowing, and neither needs an accountant to understand:
- If the silver was inherited, its "cost" for tax is usually its value on the day the previous owner died, not what they paid for it decades ago (the IRS calls this a stepped-up basis). So if you sell it soon after, there's often little or no taxable gain. That's a real relief, and a reason to note the date-of-death value.
- You owe tax on any gain (what you sold it for, minus that cost), whether or not any form gets filed. Some sales get reported to the IRS by the dealer and some don't, but the tax rule is the same either way, so just keep the receipt showing what you sold and for how much. If the amounts are large, a tax preparer earns their fee here.
This is general information, not tax or financial advice.
Local, in person, and want the fewest decisions? Your state resources page lists vetted walk-in coin shops where they exist. And this is exactly the kind of asset a struggling family gets talked out of cheaply, so it belongs beside the rest of the protection-from-exploitation playbook.
Dealer facts (minimums, insured shipping, phone numbers, BBB standing) verified July 2026 on each company's own site; the stepped-up-basis rule at irs.gov. Silver prices and buyback offers change daily: always confirm the live number before you sell, and get a competing quote. Not financial advice.