I've never thought about selling my silver,

Did sell crystal and china.

I do know when it's passed on to son, it won't be used.

Thannks, I'll have to check into pricing.

Or do you mind sharing how you came to a good price.

Mine is Buttercup by Gorham.

Glenda you should be able to get $900-$1,000 for yours.

Think it would be hard to determine a price without knowing how many place settings there are and what serving pieces you have, etc.

Glenda, you can check with a local (honest) jeweler, or look at completed auctions on Ebay for an idea what prices are. If yours is monogramed, the value may be less.

ML

no monogram

most likely the silver will be melted down to make silver jewelry

I'm glad you are at peace with your decision, Nanny98. I know that no one will love and appreciate all of my china and silver once I'm gone, but I intend to foist it on the kids anyway. They can melt it down or sell it, but at least they will have had an opportunity to enjoy something beautiful that is inherited. I always envied (mildly) people whose families passed down beautiful treasures from earlier centuries. I understand that most 20-somethings aren't interested, but I'm hoping that as they get older, they will have more of a desire to entertain a bit more formally.

Linda, I understand what you mean now. I looked at Amazon and that's for 4 pieces, salad fork, dinner fork, spoon, and knife.

Yes, Arkansas girl, they weigh the silver and then quote you a price. The silver eventually gets melted down.

I requested an 'offer' from Replacements .com. They send a itemized list and you figure out what they will offer etc. Not alot of $$$$$....but it was the first step in 'letting go' of too much stuff. (and I really felt that it had given me all it could...and it was time for someone else to be blessed by enjoying it.

Every year our city Antique & collectible club have a large Show and Sell which I usually attend. Same man there with silverware every year, so I approached him and he made an offer very close to Replacements. It was/is time. It is too beautiful (and modern/rare) to be melted down. I am sure it will find a loving home.

We bought someone else's treasure over 35 years ago, and I love it dearly. My grandmother had inherited 2 or 3 sets of Haviland Limoges china, and had collected other pretty pieces like little pitchers or bowls and vases. Because my mother died before my grandmother, everything went to my cousins whose parents were there to divide things up.

I always remembered those pretty dishes from the year that I lived with her when I was 12, and so when we heard a set being auctioned on the Public TV station in Chicago, DH bid on it for me sight unseen.

My daughter has married and has been given a few sets as wedding gifts and another whole set from her husband's grandmother. So while I think she would love my set, she really has no use for it. My son is marrying this year, and he and his fiancee are not registering for gifts, in part because they have no place to store anything in their tiny one bedroom apartment.

But I do wonder if she might like this set in years to come. I do have my mother's silver plate bowls and plates/platters. Again, I wonder if my future DIL would want them as my DD also received all kinds of silver pieces handed down from her MIL when they downsized to a smaller retirement home.

Anyhow, this is a long answer to say, yes, Nanny, there are people who will love your treasures as much as you did. I just wish I knew about the previous owner of my dishes and how she received this wonderful set of dishes I now have.

We bought someone else's treasure over 35 years ago, and I love it dearly. My grandmother had inherited 2 or 3 sets of Haviland Limoges china, and had collected other pretty pieces like little pitchers or bowls and vases. Because my mother died before my grandmother, everything went to my cousins whose parents were there to divide things up.

I always remembered those pretty dishes from the year that I lived with her when I was 12, and so when we heard a set being auctioned on the Public TV station in Chicago, DH bid on it for me sight unseen.

My daughter has married and has been given a few sets as wedding gifts and another whole set from her husband's grandmother. So while I think she would love my set, she really has no use for it. My son is marrying this year, and he and his fiancee are not registering for gifts, in part because they have no place to store anything in their tiny one bedroom apartment.

But I do wonder if she might like this set in years to come. I do have my mother's silver plate bowls and plates/platters. Again, I wonder if my future DIL would want them as my DD also received all kinds of silver pieces handed down from her MIL when they downsized to a smaller retirement home.

Anyhow, this is a long answer to say, yes, Nanny, there are people who will love your treasures as much as you did. I just wish I knew about the previous owner of my dishes and how she received this wonderful set of dishes I now have.

Luckily, our family silver (which was my grandmother's, and came to me because I was the only grandchild who knew her--she died when I was 3) is just silverplate, not full-fledged sterling. So I don't think I'll ever be tempted to sell it. And hopefully, when it goes to my daughter, she will also keep it in the family.

Still, there's nothing wrong with getting rid of something you have no use for, when the money would mean more to your family. I have a few things around the house I'm thinking of liquidating because they're not so important to me as my grandmother's silver is.

Thanks for the many comments. I would like to add that I have 3 large packing boxes of 'inherited': blue Cambridge Glass,Red transferware by Enoch Woods, and assorted elegant collectable glass, dolls, and rarely seen glass items, some in a china cabinet. I think those things will be much harder to part with.

This is not about the money...it is about having an estate sale and having people 'haggling' over those things that have been meaningful in my life. Been to too many of those, and when I attend them, I am always respectful and moved by seeing those little pieces of their lives. So many of my things tell a story of who I was, where I have been, where they came from.

Getting old is just not for sissies, in many ways.

Oh Nanny, I wish you had emailed me, I would love to have a set of silver. I got china and crystal, always wanted silver to use every day.

I will keep YOU in mind when/if my DD retrieves my Mothers' silver from her xDH.

I am working on a garage sale "for friends who will love my treasures forever". Think that will fly???

I'm looking into possibly sellling my MILs sterling silver set. I called a local place to see if I could get some "rough" figures. They had just recently paid $70 for 1 teaspoon, 1 salad fork and 1 serving spoon. Obviously it depends on weight. I was also told that a complete set can go from $700 to $1700, again depending on how many pieces and weight.

Nanny98, I love the idea of a sale for friends who will love my treasures forever. Other people adopt abandoned dogs and cats. I adopt abandoned tableware...LOL!

dlhealdquilter, Check eBay completed sales as another resource. A complete set of sterling silver for $700 would be a steal!

Guess I'd need to shop around on prices -- or buy a scale. There are a lot of qualifiers. A 'place setting' can be just four pieces and the silver content of a piece can vary.

My DM's silver is service for eight but place settings include the usual four plus individual butter knives, soups, seafood forks, demitasse spoons, etc. (I don't think there are fish knives, but there are some individual silver ASHTRAYS! LOL and CHOKE!) Her set has lead-weighted knife handles -- so, less actual silver content.

Mine is a 'contemporary' style with 7-piece service for twelve; no lead, but I think the knife blades are stainless -- so less silver content there. Mine is striking looking, but the knives are heavy and darn awkward to hold.

I don't think many Suzy Homemakers want to fuss with this stuff -- if there are any more Suzy Homemakers. Anyone with live-in help to clean and polish this can buy whatever they want, new or true antiques. My tableware is just 1930's and 1960's, not antique -- and in the attic!

I also was going to mention weight. My mom's silver and mine are similar in design and both from Towle, but hers is older and a lot heavier. Like boxes of cereal, the contents of silver flatware has shrunk over the years.

Wow, I just googled it and it says it's worth $768 per place setting. I have eight place settings. Maybe I should sell the pieces I will never use, like the soup spoons.

I would encourage all of you who are storing your sterling and china to get it out and use it! Put it in the dishwasher! I don't care what the gurus say. I'd much rather use it and enjoy it and let it get a little worn than to let it sit in a box. I use less soap and the delicate cycle. I don't mix sterling with other metals. I hand wash all knives because they can get water in the handle and come apart, but I wash my cooking knives by hand so it's not hard to add some table knives. Otherwise, I don't take any special care. If you use your sterling every day, you won't have to polish it very often.

Growing up, we ate every meal with sterling silver because that's all we had. My mother had received the sterling as a wedding present. We couldn't afford to buy a set of stainless steel. That silver is still beautiful and in use today.

Dedtired, you are right that the antique pieces are heavier than the newer pieces. That's such a shame, isn't it?

Chisue, almost all sterling non-butter knives have stainless blades.

I've tried to show the kids that it's not that much trouble to use nice tableware. It's not something they are really interested in, but I hope I'm planting seeds that will sprout someday!

Unlike gold, silver has a variety of industrial uses.

Some guy who was claiming to be a rep. of a recycler collected barrels of some kind of film-based health-related films recently, supposedly to reclaim the silver that is part of the coating on, e.g. X-ray films. They caught him and he's now in rather deep doo-doo.

Silver was much cheaper a while ago than the price that it usually runs at, in relation to gold, but the price has gone up, recently.

Gold's going up, and if I had some, I doubt that I'd sell it - yet.

Maybe the same for silver?

Don't forget - the U.S. Dollar is sort of on the sick list.

ole joyful

I would not want my sterling silver to be melted down.

Want someone to love and use it, as much as I used to, in the good ole days.

Still enjoy using it but not enough!

Congratulations!

Well...I tried using my DM's flatware. Got tired of the special treatment it required -- hand washing (even just knives), special setting for dishwasher just for this, polishing forks after Sunday breakfast (eggs). We are back to the stainless.

I can't wash my crstal OR my china in the dishwasher. The crystal would etch or break (very fragile) and the china's silver and gold decoration would be ruined. (Tried it with one gold-banded saucer.)

I feel *guilty* storing two sets of unsued tableware. I could sell it and donate the funds to charity.

Frankly, I feel like an idiot for being convinced I *needed* all this frippery in the first place! (Social norms, pushed by advertising.)

Chisue, I'm sorry that you aren't able to enjoy using your special tableware. If you really want to get rid of it, it's easier to donate it directly than to try to sell such delicate items.

BTW, I'm surprised that your dishwasher ruined the gold banding on your china. Your dishwasher must be much more powerful than mine...LOL!

I learned recently that churches here all seem to have at least a couple of complete sets of beautiful china that has been donated after the owners died. The china is only used for wedding receptions at the church.

Three days later: I am at peace with my decision to part with it. My restless nights have ceased since I have set my mind free and acknowledged that "buying" that silver was a symbol of my Mothers' accomplishment more than a dream of mine. Wow. It blows my mind to discover that she was living her life vicariously thru me. DUH only 58 years to make that connection. I did the same with MY DD, but discovered it when SHE was 15 or 16 and she eloped. (Thank Goodness, in some ways!) Maybe I am sharing too much.

Nanny -- I'm so glad you figured out what was going on in your head! No, you are not sharing too much. We have so much to learn from one another 'around the KT'.

This is a perfect example of why I think no one is too old to benefit from a little psychoanalysis -- if only to revisit AS ADULTS things we 'learned' before we were old enough to fully understand 'the whole picture'.

My own DM scrimped to buy a silver service for her hope chest when she was a young secretary at a big department store. I'm guessing that she decided to make her own social statement. She'd turned down two well-to-do suitors -- one that she dumped because he'd cheated on her (and spent most of the rest of his life trying to get her back)!