coin guide

How and Where to Sell Silver Bars

You can sell silver bars to an online precious metals marketplace, a local coin shop, a pawn shop or jeweler, or a private buyer. All of them start from the spot price of silver per troy ounce and bid below it, and the gap is the spread. How to sell silver bars well follows from that: know exactly what you hold, check a published bid and compare more than one offer on the same day.

Know Exactly What You Hold Before You Ask for a Price

Read the stamp and write down four things for each bar: the maker, the stated weight, the fineness and the serial number if there's one. Fineness is stamped as a number such as 999 or 9999. A missing serial number isn't a fault: Valcambi lists its 100 oz cast bar with no numbering, while Asahi Refining marks each of its 100 oz bars with a unique serial number.

Then weigh each bar in grams. The Anti-Counterfeiting Educational Foundation (ACEF) says the maker's stated weight should match your bar on a precise digital scale. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) fixes one troy ounce at 31.1035 g, so a 1 oz bar reads 31.10 g, a 5 oz bar 155.52 g, 10 oz silver bars 311.03 g each and a 100 oz bar 3,110.35 g.

The kitchen scale is where sellers go wrong. Its "oz" setting is the everyday avoirdupois ounce, and by the same NIST table a troy ounce is 1.097 of those. A genuine 10 oz bar reads 10.97 oz there and looks overweight. A bar that reads exactly 10.00 oz is 283.50 g, which is only 9.11 troy ounces.

Kilo bars need one more line of arithmetic. NIST puts a kilogram at 32.15 troy ounces, not 32. A buyer who pays for a 1 kilo bar as 32 ounces leaves 0.15 troy ounces, or 4.69 g, unpaid. Makers add a margin on top. The Perth Mint, whose kilo bar is stamped "1 KILO FINE SILVER 9999," sets a minimum gross weight of 1,000.200 g for it, so a reading slightly over 1,000 g is what a genuine one shows.

How Buyers Price a Silver Bar Against Spot

Every bid starts with spot. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) defines the spot price as the cash price for immediate delivery of physical metal, quoted in dollars per troy ounce, and our live silver price charts show it in real time. The same CFTC advisory says a business that trades metal always sells above spot and buys below it. The difference is its spread, and each business sets its own.

The sum behind any bid is the bar's troy ounces x spot, less that buyer's spread: 100 x spot for a 100 oz bar, 32.15 x spot for a kilo bar. The premium you paid when you bought, which The Royal Mint defines as the cost above the spot price that covers minting, distribution and seller margins, sits on the other side of spot. A bid doesn't hand it back.

Nobody sells to a business "at spot," then. What you control is which bid you take. On our marketplace, every listing for silver bars shows a price to sell beside the price to buy. With any other buyer, the CFTC's advice to people buying metal works in reverse: compare the actual weight and the price.

What Changes the Bid on a Particular Bar

Two 10 oz bars can draw different bids on the same day. The silver is identical, and what differs is how fast the buyer can confirm it.

A Maker With a Published Specification

The Royal Canadian Mint, The Perth Mint, Valcambi and Asahi Refining all publish the weight and dimensions of their silver bars. The Royal Canadian Mint, for one, lists its 10 oz bar at .9999 fine with a distinct serial number on each bar. A buyer can check a bar like that against the maker's own figures in a minute. A bar with an unfamiliar stamp, or none, leaves nothing to check against. Expect more testing, a wider spread or both.

Expect testing either way. Coin World's Paul Gilkes reported on February 17, 2013 that many fake silver pieces held no silver at all, and that most were copper, nickel and zinc in place of .999 fine silver, often discovered only after a sale. Some pieces began as openly sold "novelty" items plated with silver, and a later owner learned the truth when preparing to resell. That history, not doubt about you, is why a buyer tests inherited bars.

Engelhard and Johnson Matthey Bars

If the stamp says Engelhard or Johnson Matthey, the bar comes from a refiner that no longer makes bars under that name. BASF acquired Engelhard in 2006. Johnson Matthey announced on December 15, 2014 that it had agreed to divest its gold and silver refining business to Asahi Holdings, and Asahi Holdings finalized the acquisition on March 5, 2015, taking over refineries in Salt Lake City, Utah and Brampton, Ontario. Every one of the Engelhard silver bars and Johnson Matthey silver bars changing hands today has had a previous owner, and a buyer may price them differently from current production.

A borderline tester reading on a vintage Engelhard bar doesn't settle anything. Sigma Metalytics, which makes an electronic verifier, says genuine older Engelhard bars sometimes read outside the expected range, because they hold more contaminants or run nearer .995 than .999 fine. Ask the buyer to weigh and measure the bar as well before either of you decides.

Packaging, Tarnish and Damage

An assay card helps, but you can sell without one. The Royal Mint describes that packaging as added assurance that isn't essential for resale. Some small bars leave the maker sealed: The Perth Mint sells its 1 oz Kangaroo minted bars in tamper-evident tubes of 20. Don't open a sealed tube or card.

Tarnish isn't damage. The U.S. Geological Survey notes that silver readily reacts with sulfurous gases to form surface tarnish, and Los Alamos National Laboratory names the gases as sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide in the air. It's a surface film, not a sign of a fake. Damage you add is different. A filed, drilled or cut bar no longer matches its specification.

Where to Sell Silver Bars: Four Channels and What to Check in Each

The CFTC states that retail metal sellers aren't regulated at the federal level and tells consumers to check a firm's complaint history with their state attorney general or securities regulator, and to verify an online firm's physical address and how long it has operated. Run the same checks on a buyer before you ship. ACEF adds a filter of its own: favor firms that guarantee authenticity and make two-way markets in the products they sell.

Steps That Help Your Offer Before the Bars Leave Your Hands

• Leave each bar as it is: no cleaning, polishing or filing. ACEF calls acid the least desired test because it can destroy a genuine piece's surface.
• List every bar by maker, weight, fineness and serial number, and photograph both faces.
• Sell bars whole, in the units they were made in.
• Collect more than one bid on the same day, each as one dollar figure for the whole bar.
• Settle when the price locks, who pays for shipping and insurance, and how you'll be paid.
• Follow the buyer's own shipping instructions where it gives them.
• Find your purchase record. It sets the basis your taxable gain is measured from.

Then pack for the weight. At 453.59 g to the everyday pound, a 10 oz bar is 0.69 lb, a kilo bar 2.20 lb and 100 oz silver bars 6.86 lb each. Ten of those come to 68.57 lb before the box. U.S. Postal Service Registered Mail can be insured for up to $50,000 per item and has to be handed to a postal employee.

Taxes and IRS Reporting When You Sell Silver Bars

Selling above your cost produces a capital gain. In Topic 409 the IRS measures it as the difference between your adjusted basis and the amount you realized from the sale. On a bar held one year or less, the IRS treats the gain as short-term, taxed as ordinary income.

Past one year, a different rate applies. The IRS taxes net capital gains from selling collectibles at a maximum 28% rate, and for this purpose a silver bar is a collectible. Section 1(h)(5) of the Internal Revenue Code defines collectibles gain by borrowing the IRA definition of a collectible. Section 408(m) counts any metal as a collectible, and the borrowing skips the exception that lets bullion into an IRA. A bar that qualifies for an IRA is still a collectible when you sell it outside one.

Reporting is a separate question from tax. Under the IRS instructions for Form 1099-B, a broker reports a precious metal sale only when the metal is in a form the CFTC has approved for regulated futures trading and the quantity reaches the minimum that would satisfy such a contract. One customer's sales within a 24-hour period are added together. The IRS instructions print no ounce figure for silver bars. Whether or not a Form 1099-B is filed, the gain is yours to report.

Form 8300 gets mixed up with this. A business that receives more than $10,000 in cash in one transaction or in related transactions must file it, and in certain transactions the IRS counts cashier's checks, bank drafts, traveler's checks and money orders of $10,000 or less as cash. Form 8300 is a rule about cash a business takes in, not about silver. It's a report, not a tax.

We're not a registered investment advisor and can't give individual investment or tax advice, so speak with a tax professional or financial advisor.

How Selling Works on Our Two-Way Market

Our marketplace is a two-way market. The bid for a bar is published beside the ask, so the price to sell is in view before you commit. You'll need an account to sell your metals online. Almost every product we carry can be sold, bars bought elsewhere included, with a minimum selling transaction of $1,000. Quantity minimums and maximums can apply.

The CFTC's checks are quick to run on us: we were founded in 2010 and hold an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau. Every item is verified with modern testing equipment and numismatic expertise. Bullion Standard Pro, our paid membership, gives members live, executable wholesale bid and ask pricing. Questions before you ship can go to support@bullionstandard.com or (833) BST-GOLD (278-4653).

Frequently Asked Questions

How much can I sell a silver bar for?

Multiply the bar's troy ounces by the spot price of silver, then subtract the buyer's spread: 10 x spot for a 10 oz bar, 100 x spot for a 100 oz bar. A dollar figure printed here would be stale within minutes, so use the live bid for your bar's maker and size.

How do you sell silver at spot price?

A business that buys silver bids below spot, so selling to one "at spot" isn't on offer. A private buyer might pay closer to spot, and the checking and the payment risk are then yours. With a business, comparing bids on the same day is what narrows the gap.

Can I sell silver bars near me?

Yes. Local coin shops buy silver bars, and so do many pawn shops and jewelers. We're headquartered in San Diego, California, but we operate online only and don't have physical retail locations, so selling through our marketplace means shipping your bars.