Sell silver cutlery and canteens of cutlery, sterling or plate, we test free

Start with a question, not a parcel

The first step is a conversation, not a commitment. Send a photo of your silver cutlery on WhatsApp, or call, and you will get a quick indicative figure and a straight answer to anything you want to ask. You decide what happens next.

Because GoldPaid works entirely by post across the UK, you do all of this from home, in your own time. No shop, no queue, and nobody watching over your shoulder while you think.

Sterling or plate, the question that decides everything

Most canteens of cutlery in British homes are silver plate rather than solid silver, and it is fairer to say so at the start than after your parcel has been opened. Plate was the everyday tableware of the Victorian, Edwardian and post-war middle-class house, sold openly as plate and often by very good makers. It is not a fake. It simply has no bullion value: the silver is a coating measured in microns over a nickel, copper or britannia-metal core, and there is nothing recoverable in it. Solid sterling is 92.5 per cent silver all the way through and is bought by weight.

Photograph the marks on one fork, one spoon and one knife and send them on WhatsApp. If the set is plate we will tell you before you spend an afternoon packing it, and nothing goes in the post. What EPNS means on silver plate explains the plating trade names in full, and the UK silver hallmarks guide covers the British mark set.

Where the marks sit on cutlery, and why people miss them

Flatware is marked in awkward places. On forks and spoons the hallmark is normally on the back of the stem, either just below the bowl or tines or part way down the handle, as a line of four or five small stamps rather than one large one. On knives it is on the blade collar or the ferrule where the handle meets the blade, not on the handle face. Serving pieces are usually marked on the back of the handle. Where a family monogram sits on one face, the marks are almost always on the other.

Two things catch people out. A cutler name rolled into a knife blade, common on Sheffield blades, is a manufacturer name and not a hallmark, so it proves nothing either way. And marks wear thin on a set used for fifty years: a faint lion is still a lion. Unmarked is not the same as plated, which is why every parcel is XRF-assayed rather than judged on stamps alone.

Filled knife handles, and exactly how the deduction works

A sterling table knife is not a solid silver object, and this is the single biggest cause of disappointment in this category. The handle is a thin sterling shell formed in two halves and soldered together, filled with pitch, resin or plaster for weight and balance, with a steel tang bedded into the filling and a steel blade. The number on the scales therefore has very little to do with the silver in the knife. Trade shorthand for this is a loaded or filled handle.

We publish the method rather than spring it on you after the parcel arrives. Knives are separated from the rest of the canteen and treated as their own group. Steel blades and filler are not paid for. Where a set is uniform we establish the recoverable shell weight from a sample handle, assayed and weighed with the blade and filler accounted for, and apply that figure across the matching knives. Where the knives are mixed they are grouped and treated separately. Your written offer shows the knife count, the gross weight, the silver weight used and the rate applied as their own lines, next to the forks and spoons rather than blended into them.

The same treatment applies to anything built the same way: pistol-grip handles, cake slices, fish servers and most carving sets. Forks, spoons, ladles and sauce spoons are almost always solid and are paid on full assayed weight.

What is actually in a canteen

A canteen is a cased or boxed set of flatware for a stated number of place settings, most often six, eight or twelve. British sets commonly run to 44, 60 or 84 pieces depending on the settings and how many serving pieces are included. The pattern name describes the shape of the stem and nothing else: Old English, Fiddle, Fiddle Thread and Shell, Rat Tail, Bead, King’s and Queen’s patterns were all made in both sterling and plate, so a pattern name on its own tells you nothing about the metal.

Those ranges are indicative rather than an offer, and they move with the pattern: a double-struck King’s pattern spoon can weigh half as much again as a plain Old English one of the same size. They show why weight decides the outcome here. Silver is worth a small fraction of gold per gram, so a single teaspoon comes to very little while a twelve-setting canteen is a serious weight of metal, which is why it pays to send the set together rather than a piece at a time. See the silver price and selling by post for how silver value moves.

The process, step by step

1. Get in touch and show us. A WhatsApp photo of your silver cutlery is all we need to give you a quick indicative figure before anything is posted.
2. Get your free label. We send a prepaid Royal Mail Special Delivery label, fully tracked. If you have no printer, a QR code for the counter does the same job.
3. Send it at your own pace. Wrap it in any padded envelope and hand it in at a Post Office whenever it suits you.
4. See the written offer. Everything is weighed, metal is XRF-assayed and any stones are assessed separately, usually on the working day your parcel arrives. You then get an itemised breakdown showing exactly how the figure was reached.
5. Decide. Say yes and the money is sent by Faster Payments. Say no and your items come straight back, free and tracked.

Your parcel is signed for on arrival and opened at our Bristol office, where each item is weighed and XRF-tested before the written offer is prepared.

What the offer is built on

Every offer is measured: confirmed purity from an XRF assay, accurate weight, and the live precious-metal market on the day we test, with our margin already inside the figure. You read each figure in a written, itemised breakdown before you decide anything. For how the market moves and what it means for selling by post, see the gold price and selling by post and the silver price and selling by post.

A canteen is sorted by type before anything is weighed. Forks, spoons and serving pieces are XRF-assayed to confirm sterling, Britannia or a continental standard rather than plate, then weighed and valued on their confirmed silver content and the live precious-metal market. Knives and other filled pieces are handled as a separate group with the steel and filler taken out of the figure. The written breakdown shows each group, its weight, its purity and the rate applied, so you can see exactly where the total comes from.

One parcel gets one written figure, itemised piece by piece. Your offer reflects the weight and purity we measure and the live precious-metal market on the day, with our margin already inside the figure, so nothing further is taken off. For coins, watches and signed or collectable pieces, send a photo on WhatsApp first and we will tell you how we would value them before you post anything.

When a canteen is worth more than its silver

We would rather tell you than quietly melt something. Georgian flatware, complete cased sets by a named silversmith, unusual or early patterns and sets with their full complement of serving pieces sometimes clear melt value at auction or with a specialist dealer. If we see that in your parcel we say so in writing before you decide, and you are free to decline and take it elsewhere at no cost. The reverse is also true and worth knowing: a good plated canteen in its original case can fetch more on a resale site than any metal buyer will pay for it, because as metal it is worth nothing.

Cover in transit

The prepaid label is Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed: full tracking and a signature on delivery. Royal Mail cover may be available up to £2,500 depending on the postal method and cover level used. GoldPaid can confirm the appropriate postal option before you post. For higher-value items, please message us first so the parcel can be split across more than one prepaid label before it travels. Postage and cover explains it fully. If a parcel is lost on its way to us, the compensation claim goes to Royal Mail from you, the sender, using your Post Office receipt, and we give you our tracking records and help you make it. Lost parcels, step by step.

Packing a canteen for the post

• Weigh the lot roughly on kitchen or bathroom scales and tell us the figure before you post, so the postal arrangements are confirmed rather than guessed.
• Keep the set in its case if it has one, tape the case shut, then box the case. A loose canteen will burst a padded envelope.
• Put tissue or kitchen roll between the pieces so blades do not mark handles in transit, and fill any voids so nothing shifts.
• Large canteens are often better split across two labels, both for the weight and so the value per parcel sits inside the cover. We arrange the labels and there is nothing for you to pay.
• Do not polish anything first. Polishing removes a little silver every time and makes no difference to the assay.

Parcels travel by Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed, tracked end to end and signed for. Postage and cover covers the postal detail in full, and sell silverware covers tea services, trays and candlesticks if the same house has produced those as well. Small pieces are worth adding to the same parcel rather than posting separately: sell antique silver smalls explains what a thimble, a napkin ring or a wood-backed photo frame actually contains, and how many of them make a parcel worth sending on its own.

If you decide not to sell

There is never any obligation to accept. If the offer is not for you, simply decline, and we return everything free of charge by tracked, signed-for post, with no fee and no follow-up pressure. The full return process is on what happens if I decline the offer.

The written offer is dated and holds for a limited time, because metal prices move. If it lapses before you decide, we re-run it against the live precious-metal market on the day, at no charge. You can also accept part of a parcel and decline the rest, with no minimum and no penalty for splitting it.

Who this helps

This page is for people who have inherited a canteen that will never be laid on a table, executors who need a written figure for an estate, and anyone with a drawer of loose flatware left from a set broken up years ago. Odd pieces are welcome; a set does not have to be complete to be sold by weight. Where the cutlery has come from an estate, probate and inheritance explains how a written valuation works.

Payment, once you accept

When you say yes to the written offer, GoldPaid aims to pay by Faster Payments bank transfer within one working hour of your acceptance, to your nominated account. You give those details only at the point you accept, never as a condition of getting an offer.

Why sell by post with GoldPaid

Three differences from a counter sale. You see a measured valuation in writing, not a verbal estimate. You decide at home, with nobody waiting. And if you decline, the return is free, tracked and signed for, so obtaining the valuation costs you nothing.

Common questions