How can I determine or estimate the weight on a piece of sterling flatware with a stainless blade?
Try gently separating the handle from the blade. Did I understand your question correctly?
Sometimes it’s not worth making such drastic moves…
According to this, How much silver is in a knife handle? Silver in sterling knife? just over 25% of the total weight is silver.
Depends why you want to know. If you are selling for scrap, follow Bart’s suggestion. If you want to sell knives as part of a set of otherwise solid sterling silver then just sell as an addition to weighable silver and throw the knives in. Every serious buyer knows there is, as Paul suggests, a percentage of silver and it’s his bonus when he buys.
In fact knife handles vary considerably in silver content. Some are hollowed out plugs of silver into which pitch or another compound is put and then the shank of the blade inserted. Others, usually the older knives are little more than tubes of materials with a thin wrap of silver and well below the 25% content.
If I could insert a cautionary note here: the collector wants 18th and early 19th century carbon steel knife blades in the original handles with detectable silver marks on the collar of the handle. Anything you do, including substituting stainless for those old, sometimes ground down and sometimes showing rust blades will dull his enthusiasm and lower value.
Substituting the old blades for modern stainless steel – very sensible if you are simply wanting to have something for use everyday— but otherwise not good from the collector’s point of view.
Because original blades are so often worn, damages or rusted out, good sets of knives are very rare and please don’t do anything to them if you have them. I have a set of 12, dated about 1794 with Damascus steel blades —that’s the steel usually used for gun barrels and layered. They are bank-vaulted silver and little used. The silver content is relatively low, I would guess maybe 15%. I have been offered $4,000 for them and turned it down. The buyers wants the pristine feather-edged silver and the blades. At that price he is not melting anything or buying based on bullion percentage. But then I am not selling them either!
CRWW
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Thanks very much! This is helpful information!
Thanks for the information. I appreciate your response!
Thank you for your input. This is helpful information!