Have you discovered jewelry made of fine .999 silver and you want to get a real value for it? If you’re just a novice collector, it may seem a little difficult to get familiar with the real values of silver and how fast it changes. It’s worth noting that .999 silver is different compared to other silver you find marked as S925 silver, as it’s considered fine, and real silver.
Nevertheless, even the least informed and knowledgeable people about this discipline can learn a thing or two about evaluating fine silver. That being said, whether you discovered jewelry or another object made out of fine silver, and you want to get the best value for it, you’ve come to the right place.
If you want to buy silver and store it in the vault, reading this article will also help you accomplish that. There are many websites and guides to explore, but we guarantee that this is the only guide that you will ever need.
That being said, if you’re interested in learning more about fine silver and how much is .999 silver worth, continue reading this article, and we’ll also help you evaluate the pieces you believe are fine silver without spending a ton of money on hiring an appraiser.
Quick Summary: Silver value changes every day, especially of the .999 silver. An ounce of silver costs $19.56, but there are different factors to be considered when selling or buying silver.
What is .999 Silver?
If you’re just starting your journey as a collector or coming to terms with the fact that there are different types of silver, you may have become confused with the terms used interchangeably between collectors, vault sellers, and others. Below, we’ll detail what .999 silver is and how much it is worth.
The silver known as .999 is known as fine silver, but the best way to define it is to say that this is the silver in its purest form. There are no metal alloys like a combination of silver and copper which is used for jewelry, as well as coins.
People who worked on making silver bullions made sure that the silver is 99.9% pure and that there are little to no impurities that are inside it. They are present enough not to make it 100% silver but insignificant enough to not be seen by the naked eye of the person who owns bullion and isn’t too well-versed with the terminology.
It’s worth mentioning that currently, it’s impossible to practically make 100% silver. More importantly, investors are most invested in the .999 silver and store them in vaults when they want to invest in fine silver.
It’s worth noting that the “finer” the silver, the more brittle and malleable it is. That’s why people stopped bothering with making 100% pure silver and are more invested with the 99.9% silver, although silver is best used when it’s alloyed with other metals such as copper which is harder and stabler compared to silver.
When evaluating silver, it’s often considered what metal it has been alloyed with, then the metal is evaluated at the fineness scale. The fineness scale has 1000 parts on the scale. For silver, being graded with 1000 part scale would mean that you have pure silver. Otherwise, if your silver would score 500 on the fineness score, that would mean that the object being evaluated contained 50% silver.
It’s also important to note that some silver bullions are evaluated as .9999 silver, which is finer and closer to 100% silver, but not significantly. If you hire an appraiser or compare different values of .999 silver, that value isn’t significantly different compared to the .9999 silver. And while its fineness level is only slightly higher, there are no visible differences between those two bullions.
.999 Fine Silver Vs. .925 Sterling Silver
Two types of silver are often mistaken for one another, especially in the jewelry industry. While a lot of people search for silver jewelry that’s pure silver, they often mistake it for sterling silver. The 92.5% pure silver is a type of silver that has been internationally recognized, especially in the jewelry industry.
It otherwise has 925 fineness and has existed since medieval times. It is also considered the minimum standard in the United States and other countries regarding coinage. It’s also considered the most common type of silver that you can find.
The .925 silver is made of 92% of pure silver, while 7% is made out of copper. The remaining 1% contains other metals which couldn’t be traced. When it comes to fine silver, 99.9%, it’s important to note that a very small amount of metals and other impurities are found in the remaining 0.01%.
Sterling silver is more commonly used in jewelry because it’s easier to shape into pieces of jewelry as well as coinage, whereas .999 silver is more brittle and harder to mold into the desired shape. Sterling silver is simply stabler and firmer compared to purer types of silver.
Thanks to the hardness of sterling silver, jewelers can carve interesting and unique shapes into the jewelry making it more durable and appealing to the customers. Different designs that are used for jewelry today wouldn’t be able to be made with fine silver, as it’s simply too soft.
Many uneducated people look for 99.9% silver jewelry because they think that, unlike sterling silver, it won’t tarnish. But the truth is, it does tarnish pretty often. There are different ways to clean both types of silver, and if you wear silver jewelry there’s less chance that it’ll tarnish.
However, keeping it in high humidity settings may do just that, make the jewelry tarnish faster, as well as if you store it away too long. Natural fluids off the human body help keep it last longer.
What Is .999 Silver Worth?
The value of silver changes daily, and you never know what can you expect the next day. However, it’s worth noting that silver has value in different weights and options, which is why you need to keep track of the value consistently.
If you want to buy silver or want to find a measure to consider when selling items made in fine silver, there are a few websites where you can track the value of the silver and notice the changes as soon as the value change occurs. One of these websites is monex.com.
On this website, you can also see different charts and fluctuations in the value of silver at a given time. That way, you can also see that the silver value has dropped compared to earlier, 2022 when the value was $26.94.
As of now, the value of silver can be represented in the chart below. Make sure to check it thoroughly, depending on what kind of silver you’re selling or buying and the amount.
| Silver | Price |
| Per Ounce | $19.56 |
| Per Gram | $0.63 |
| Per Kilo | $628.85 |
How to Determine the Value of Silver
If you have an item that you suspect was made of .999 silver, there are quite a few methods you can use to determine if it’s made out of nearly 100% silver, or if is there a catch. If you don’t want to hire an appraiser, this will also help you determine the price you want to use when selling it.
Stamp
The stamp is the first thing you want to look at when checking an item made of .999 silver. Usually, there should be a hallmark or a stamp that determines its composition. If you find yourself in the middle of an auction sale, flea market, or some other market and spot a nice item made of silver, the manufacturer’s mark will help you determine whether it’s real silver or a note.
The silver stamps go like S925, S900, S800, or S999. The 800 means there’s 80% silver in the item while 999 means there’s 99.9% silver. There are other markings next to the stamp, like the manufacturer’s seal or date which can also help you determine the composition of silver and whether the silver is real.
Magnet
Precious metals such as copper and gold don’t have any magnetic properties. In other words, they’re nonmagnetic. As such, silver also doesn’t have magnetic properties which would attract it to other metals. The fake silver items which are usually made of iron, cobalt, or nickel have strong magnetic properties and will be drawn to magnets. An item made of silver may twitch or exhibit weak magnetic activity, but that’s where it ends.
Polish It
As mentioned earlier, polish often tarnishes, regardless of whether it’s 925 or 999 kind of silver. You can polish it using a white cotton cloth. The cloth should pick up some of the residues which are a result of oxidization as well as tarnish. Keep in mind that if there’s nothing on your cloth, it’s either because it’s already been polished recently, or it’s not real silver.
Frequently Asked Questions
The internet is full of questions about the .999 silver. We put away some answers below.
Where Can You Buy .999 Silver?
Amazon, eBay, and Etsy are always good places to start if you want to buy items made out of .999 silver. Out of the three, the eBay marketplace may be the best. Still, if you want to buy silver bullion and store them in vaults, there are many online marketplaces where you can do so. One such place is JM Bullion. Silver can also be bought on offline auctions and flea markets, but you need to be more careful to recognize authentic silver.
Is There .999 Silver Jewelry?
There’s not much jewelry made out of .999 silver, as the fine silver is brittle and can break easily compared to the S925 sterling silver. Some companies make fine silver jewelry with 0.01% of copper alloy to give the jewelry the firmness it needs and make it less prone to breaking and snapping.
Is .999 Silver the Real Silver?
The .999 silver is also known as fine or pure silver with a millesimal fineness of 99.9%. That means that more than 99.9% contains pure silver, while only a small amount of other materials is being traced. It’s not possible to make 100% silver bullion.
