refaalliance.blogg.se - Shockingly simple math money mustache

I’m expecting to receive a check for about $800. I sent it to Midwest Refineries, and let them know to look for it in Thursday’s mail. Shipping was $5.35, and insurance was $12.00. So today, I packaged up the sterling in a well-insured, USPS flat rate box.

They were answered quickly and accurately by a guy with reasonable grammar and an email address that matched the company’s domain name. They have a circa-1993 website, which may actually be a good thing: what does a metals recycling company need a slick website for? Reviews were reasonable, and their payout is a more reasonable 90% of the market price of silver. Some more online research led me to another buyer, this place called “Midwest Refineries” in Michigan. Most of them were quoting a payout of only about $15 per ounce for the silver – half the market price. Many of them had bad marks on their Better Business Bureau record when I looked them up, or bad reviews. After the sorting process, I was left with only 33.5 ounces of actual sterling, when weighed on a postal scale.īut there was still a hurdle to clear: who would actually buy the silver? All of the local dealers sounded a bit shifty to me. You’ve got your knives on the left, sterling silver in the middle, and silver plated stuff on the right. Sterling silver: Only the stuff in the center is saleable When you add all this up, I was left with three piles, shown in this picture: This was done for functional reasons, since silver is too soft to make a good knife. There is one additional complication: even in a sterling silver set, the knives are usually made with stainless steel blades, and silver-plated handles.

Solid Sterling, which is always stamped “sterling” on the handle.

This stuff is not worth much in this context.

Silver Plated, which looks and feels just like silver, but is actually only covered with a thin coating of silver.

Silver flatware actually comes in two varieties: I called a few, and they helped me learn some useful things about this ‘stash of silver that I was looking to sell: I found various gold and silver shops, foreign exchange places, and other traders. So I turned to the local business directories. The consensus among silver sellers seemed to be that the collector value of sets like these is lower than the melt value of the underlying silver. I researched a bit further by Googling through some online forums. Unfortunately, nothing similar seemed to be getting bids on Ebay. I started with eBay, figuring there are people out there who collect almost anything – maybe this type of silverware “Joan of Arc” was highly desirable. The next stop in my research was to find a place who actually wanted to buy this stuff. In case you’re curious, that flat line on the graph extends back all the way to the late 1700s, with the exception of a spike to about 20 bucks around 1980. As of this writing, the current silver price is about $29.35 per ounce. In other words, this is one of the best times to sell precious metals in many generations: Gold, Silver, Copper, and various other things have been running hot since the late 2000s. How much is silver worth these days, anyway? I keep an eye on financial markets in general, so I knew we were still in a middle of a big commodities price boom. During my recent visit, she handed me the heavy bag of silver and wished me good luck. This year, I finally decided to take on the challenge. For years, she has considered selling it, but the task always seemed a bit mysterious and daunting. On the other hand, with my family not being overly wealthy, she surely CAN think of a practical use for a little bit of extra grocery money.

She has no use for it, and it’s just taking up space. After each use, it would become oxidized and require meticulous polishing with special fluids.įast forwarding 20 years, this sterling silver has been sitting in a drawer in GMM’s house unused for longer than some of us have been alive. It was fancy (although impractical) stuff which we occasionally used for big holiday dinners when I was a kid. One of these was a complete set of sterling silver flatware. Many years ago, her own parents passed on, leaving various antique things in their estate. Assuming you’ve already got enough stuff yourself, this can require some serious strategy to deal with properly.Īs a case-in-point, let’s take my dear Mum – the same Grandma Money Mustache who was featured in the Cost-Effective Renovations article. But this natural progression of life also brings with it some practical considerations: a whole load of material stuff that gets passed on from one generation to the next. I love the many positive aspects of a family that shares its stories and values from one generation to the next. That means our parents are even older, and our grandparents – if they’re still around – are sagely pieces of living history. So, some of us Mustachians are getting pretty old.