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davycoppit
Penny Pincher Member
USA
126 Posts |
 Posted - 11/02/2007 : 19:21:57
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I bought a few candle stick holders at a thrift store today. They say sterling weighted on the bottom of them. Does this mean that the enitre thing is sterling silver? Or is the inside weighted? I tried to find online but couldn't come up with anything. Im hopeing they are pure sterling. Any help would be well appreciated.
david
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fiatboy
Administrator
912 Posts |
Posted - 11/02/2007 : 19:59:34
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Sight unseen, it's hard to tell, but it sounds like they're not pure sterling. 
Usually the term "weighted sterling" refers to a layer of sterling covering a lead or composite base. The thickness of the layer of sterling varies drastically upon the "make, model, and year" or the piece. Typically, the amount of sterling is negligible. There is an offchance, however, that you still have a decent amount of sterling, but not in the base of the "heavy part" of the piece.
Years ago while cleaning out my house, I found quite a few Gorham candelabras and bowls that are weighted sterling---talk about getting my hopes up!
"Bart, it's not about how many stocks you have, it's about how much copper wire you can get out of the building." --- Homer Simpson |
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horgad
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
1641 Posts |
Posted - 11/03/2007 : 09:32:53
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Weighted sterling is way better than plate. The difference between the two is that with plated the base metal, of course, is throughout the whole piece and then covered by a very thin layer of silver.
With weighted sterling the item is made of solid sterling and then a hollow spot or spots in the item are filled with something to give it weight. With a weighted sterling item it should be fairly easy to cut the the piece and physically remove the filling leaving you with pure sterling that can be weighed.
You could still easily end up with several troy ounce of sterling depending on how big those candle stick holders are. Do they have green felt or similar on the bottom? Remove the felt and I would bet that you can see the filling and maybe even be able to remove it... |
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davycoppit
Penny Pincher Member
USA
126 Posts |
Posted - 11/03/2007 : 10:33:08
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| Thanks alot for the replies. They do not have green felt on the bottom. The whole bottom is sterling. I will however cut one open to see what is inside. They weigh 2.6 oz each so hopefully there isnt too much filling. |
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davycoppit
Penny Pincher Member
USA
126 Posts |
Posted - 11/04/2007 : 16:07:14
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| I did cut the candle holders open. Not nearly as much sterling as I would have thought. Probably less than a half oz in each. Oh well it was a learning experience. |
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pencilvanian
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
2209 Posts |
Posted - 11/04/2007 : 20:09:24
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How much did the candlesticks cost you?
I bought some weighted sterling candlesticks cheap at a yard sale a little while back.
As long as you didn't pay more than $12 for the pair you still made out OK.
Current price of silver, $14.60 per ounce,
times .925 for sterling
= $13.50 in silver.
(This applies to other blogs/forums, didn't mean to annoy anyone here with this)
Starve the Trolls, don't feed or encourage them.
Destroy the Moonbat breeding caves.
Moonbat, A winged troll. |
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davycoppit
Penny Pincher Member
USA
126 Posts |
Posted - 11/05/2007 : 15:08:42
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Yeah I paid ten dollers each for them. So I lost money on the deal, but mabye it will save me from losing alot someday. And if the price of silver goes up and the doller down mabye eventually I will come out ahead.
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Frugi
Administrator
USA
627 Posts |
Posted - 11/06/2007 : 11:25:00
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I have came across many of these over the years. Most are from the 1940's and tons are made by Douchin Creations, most often marked with a little hand on the underside of the base. I just sold a candlabra for $65.00 w/ a sterling reed & barton snuffer to a guy at the flea market. It was a five light candlabra. The bigger candlabra's if in good condition, should be sold for collecting value. The one I sold was in marvelous condition (50 years old) and only sold for near melt. How do I know the melt value of a five light candlabra?
Whenever I find the single light candlesticks marked sterling weighted I always smash them flat with a sledge hammer, they yield about 3/4 - 1 ounce usually per pair. If you smash them and save them until you get a couple of ounces you can easily sell them on ebay, I have. So if you find the bigger ones they should be worth about $50.00 right now for a five light, and about $7.00 each on single lights with wide bases. Also these still function for what they were intended and would serve useful in a survival situation or just a blackout. They will always be worth there silver value, if you can establish to someone and convince them of the silver value and the collectable value you can get much more, so you don't necessarily have to smash 'em. I did because it was easy and I was finding them really cheap, sometimes as low as $0.25 each, but most often I would pay about $5.00 a pair. Douchin Creations also made tons of salt and pepper shakers also weighted and worth much less in silver value. The s&p shakers also usually contains glass to hold the salt in. S&P shakers not worth more than $5.00 total in silver, do not but these to smash. I do buy these often to keep as they too are still useful. Silver has un-matched anti-bacterial capabilities and is still the #1 component used in the water & sewage filtration industry. It so happens you could take a Morgan silver dollar or a Peace dollar and put it in a 8oz glass of milk, and leave it on your kitchen counter for a week and it will still be perfectly suitable to drink. Many people preserved milk this way during the depression, when things needed to last longer. It might be a good idea with all the germ worries nowadays if people started eating with sterling silverware again.
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fiatboy
Administrator
912 Posts |
Posted - 11/06/2007 : 20:05:35
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Thanks for the informative post, Frugi.
I especially like your sledgehammer method!
"Bart, it's not about how many stocks you have, it's about how much copper wire you can get out of the building." --- Homer Simpson |
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n/a
deleted
192 Posts |
Posted - 11/07/2007 : 20:43:51
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I've actually tested the milk with silver in it and found that old wive's tale to be false.
I took a silver plated cup and put a 99.9% silver round in it, then I poured milk in it.
I took a ceramic cup and poured milk in it.
After 48 hours they were both putrid.
Anyone with an ounce of silver can test this for themselves.
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Don't believe everything you think. |
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Frugi
Administrator
USA
627 Posts |
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n/a
deleted
4 Posts |
Posted - 11/19/2007 : 08:07:14
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| Ok as long as we`re on silver as a germicide. For swimming pools- (I sold this Idea on ebay a couple years ago)fivebucks a plan!(good feedback)take a couple pieces of scrap sterling -put it in an acid safe container, pour in a slosh (3-4 oz.) of muratic acid ,let it sit for a minute or two, pour in your pool or spa. the ionized AgCl & cuCl will cut your use of shock Or other pool oxidizer by 80%. In a normal pool 10- 50K gallons you will spend 40-100 a month on oxidizer , with this method about 10 -20 .The water "feels better' too. The acid at this level won`t change the ph enough to even notice .Just be carefull with the acid!+ the muratic acid is less than five bucks for a summers worth ands it`s available as a concrete cleaner at most home improvement centers. Copper will work as well if you don`t have sterling or a few 90% coins. silver spoon kids were healthier not necessarily richer. |
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1 Posts |
 Posted - 04/02/2008 : 17:34:55
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I just discovered this forum while searching for something related to sterling silver through Google. Everybody was so incredibly [/font=Arial]wrong in this discussion, that I actually registered just to counter this misinformation!
Pure silver is very light in weight. Sterling silver, which is 92.5% silver and 7.5% other metal (usually copper) is also very light in weight (and easily bent and damaged, too, while we're on that subject).
Because sterling candlesticks are very light in weight, they would easily tip over if they weren't weighted in the bottom. If a candlestick tipped over, it would start a fire!
So, to keep them from tipping over, and being a fire hazard, all sterling candlesticks are weighted in the bottom. They are then covered with felt on the bottom to keep the rough edges and the cement from scratching your nice tabletop.
Therefore, nobody is trying to cheat anybody in weighting sterling candlesticks. This is an absolute must to keep them from being a fire hazard! No need to cut them apart, etc. 'Weighted' means exactly what it says!
This is probably the only message I will post to this forum, so let me state here that silver prices are pretty high, right now about $20 an ounce or more. But be aware that antique silver, unless it is something monstrously ugly, usually has value that far exceeds its melt value.
Let's say that you find a sterling silver serving piece in a particular pattern at a yard sale (lucky you). It's a fancy piece called an ice cream slice, in an Art Nouveau pattern (from the period dating end of 19th to early 20th century). You think it is pretty heavy, so you buy it and immediately run to the nearest place where you can turn it in for scrap. They weigh the piece, and tell you it's 2.5 troy ounces. They give you $50 for it.
As it turns out though, that piece, on the antique silver market, could be worth (depending on how decorated it is) maybe $500 to $1500!! You just lost big money!
And not only that, you have destroyed a piece of America's history, as silver manufacturing was an era, with some of the finest designers, winning World's Fairs in Paris, etc.
Moral of the story: There will always be a market for antique sterling silver. It will always be worth more than melt value because there are more people wanting to buy it than there are available pieces.
So, on behalf of all of us collectors out here, please don't destroy the beautiful pieces for their melt value!
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Ardent Listener
Administrator
USA
4841 Posts |
Posted - 04/02/2008 : 17:44:32
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| Thanks for the information broo2you. Please feel free to post more about sterling collecting anytime. Links are most welcome too. |
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Saul Mine
Penny Collector Member
USA
343 Posts |
Posted - 04/26/2008 : 00:31:32
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| A candlestick that is a foot tall and weighs 2 pounds has less than 1 oz silver. The rest is sand. However, some candelabras will have 2 to 5 ounces in the cross piece (the part that holds three candles). But the cross piece also has an iron rod that has to be removed. |
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Sterling Weighted
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