Buying scrap question

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Good evening
Sorry if this question goes on a little.
I have been collecting silver for many years,
Really just as a bit of a challenge to see what I could pick up for a bargain at charity shops fairs and boot sales.
I have ended up with a pretty decent collection but I realise that in fact I actually have some really nice pieces of antique silver that to be honest I would rather was owned by someone who really appreciated it for what it is, rather than just silver metal.
All my collection is just left in a draw not being appreciated.
I have a few favourite pieces I will never part with but the rest of the really nice antique pieces I would prefer to sell to people who appreciate them .
So here’s my problem.
I would actually really like to keep the money I make selling the nice antique silver invested in silver , so I thought, sell the good stuff for reasonable price and then just buy any old silver junk or old coins for around the scrap price and keep that as an investment.
But that seems to be a lot more difficult than I thought.
I don’t really have any problems with selling the good stuff but I’m finding it impossible to find any way to buy scrap silver at anything like a reasonable price.

Even when looking at a pile of junk broken jewellery and odd bits of cutlery I can’t find anything at less than about £1 per gram , buying old silver coins is worse and as for new so called investment coins or ingots they are over £30 an oz .
So am I missing something here?
How is it possible to invest in physical silver if it’s only possible to buy it for almost double its spot price?

2

I wish it wasn’t as simple as this but the answer is go to local auctions and buy domestic silver fashioned into items not currently used on the average dining room table.

Or even stuff that is.

The English used to air out toast in things called toast racks.

If that wasn’t cool enough they used to serve veggies in things called entree dishes, large heavy usually rectangular dishes with lids and detachable handles. They weigh a great deal and nobody wants them unless are regency or before.

Then there are suites of flatware made in the Americas in the 20th century. It’s troubling exactly how little they go for.

Heavy stuff, tea trays from mid Vicky onwards consistently sell below scrap especially if they are retirement pieces.

Tea sets, same problem.

And the higher the scrap spot goes the worse the problem gets.

The thing about most of the stuff I am talking about its often very well made, using cast moulds made a 150 years earlier.

Rule of thumb, the more recent and the heavier the gear is the cheaper. Also is items are bundled by the auctioneer they go from a third off the singles price regardless of which item it is.

If that still isn’t cheap enough for you, grab few tools and start investigating the tailings piles from old mines. Used to there was a real problem buying a house in a little town called Cobalt just north of Toronto. Because the mineral rights were reserved when you bought your house, coming home after work to find the house moved or dismantled and someone mining your potato patch was a routine hazard. If the streets weren’t literally paved with silver the sidewalks hewn out of slab stone were. Much of WWI was financed from Cobalt mines. And they might have got 4/5 of it, but rich veins re still readily available.

Cobalt’s a town everybody knows about. There are towns in BC which were once bigger than LA was which have completely disappeared into the bush. Others like Rossland have morphed into major tourist towns where if people come for silver its skiing trophies. Although, down the bottom of the hill is the Trail lead zinc smelter which used to pull out a ton or more of silver every year as a byproduct it shipped off to the Canadian mint.

Cobalt still does. Cobalt now being the product and silver the by product.

And silver isnt the only problem. There’s gold and copper. A while back got permission to moor a steam ship I had bought up Howe Sound at Britannia Beach. There was a good dock but no bollards. So I figured sink some pilings and voila, I’ve got something to tie the old girl up to which I figure out what’s next.

Went into the local hardware store to get a post drill and a pick axe.

" What’s you planning on doing with that?" a local wag asked me, having a pretty good idea of the answer.

I told him .

Which caused more mirth than would have been the ideal response.

Soon found out why. The nice dock was mine tailings and over the years had fused solid.

The guy in the hardware store having a chuckle at my ambition to sink pilings owned the mining rights to the dock, or so he said. Don’t know how profitable it was but he bought a brand new caddy every 18 months.

2 Likes
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Exhibit “A” just today:
https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/209723937_a-georgian-silver-harlequin-part-canteen-of-cutlery-essex-england Sold for ÂŁ1,400.00 plus 28% of same equals ÂŁ1,792 pounds against a scrap value of ÂŁ2,247.86 for a paper profit of ÂŁ455.00

CRWW

4

Keep the stuff you like and sell the rest. If you bought it at car boot sales etc I’m sure you’ve done well. But why sell the good stuff? Keep it and enjoy it and sell the rest. And if buying silver is simply an ivestment buy a silver etf. There’s plenty out there. And you don’t pay much premium over spot. That’s the best way to play silver as investment. But if you love silver objects as i do, then that’s a different conversation.