Selling family Gorham sterling flatware set- advice?

[RetroMonde]

I'm executor/trustee (sorta) of my dad's estate which has been held as a living trust for 9 years. Our stepmom has moved into retirement/assisted living so the estate is slowly transitioning to us. We have her permission to begin cleaning out their home now. (Sadly this isn't a pickers paradise so it's no fun.) There's a lovely, almost complete 12 piece set of antique flatware we want to sell as none of us need it but we need the $$ to handle dump fees and minor maintenance on the home. Does anyone here have experience with selling vintage silver? Is this better done online, local, pawnshop or ?? Sell the set complete or part it out? I saw examples of both on eBay. I'm really clueless what to do first. Advice or suggestions? Thanks a bunch!

[bettyblackbent]

Pawnshops won't give you much.

For that particular pattern....do individual pieces sell for so much more than as sets that it's worth selling individually? ie, dinner forks sell for $30 each, five piece setting sells for 120, so you would want to sell individually. Dinner fork sells for $30, five piece setting sells for 145, might be easier to do it as settings or the whole set.

[Deleted]

Sterling or Plate?
Pawnshops normally don't go too much above melt value on sterling, and plated can be much worse.

Most of the sets I've sold in the past where silverplate.
I normally sell them intact w/the chest unless they have missing pieces or some are showing heavy wear, then I separate.

If there were any serving pieces I normally sold those separate.

[RetroMonde]

This set is marked sterling but the dinner knives have stainless blades. It's a pretty art nouveau poppy pattern from around 1902 that I'd hate to see melted down but show me the money and you can do whatever. I have other family silver that I'd like to re-home and before the holidays may be the best time for getting a decent price for any of it. Some shows as having sold individually so I think I may try that route first. That way people can buy what they need to complete their set. And I'm thinking of selling it on Etsy since the fees are lower.

Betty- my BIL owns a pawnshop. It seems like any time I ask him about selling something he gets a sad look on his face and shakes his head. I'm not gonna go there lol.

[pammyvan]

I have sold a set of sterling flatware. I sold it ( about 100 pieces total ) when silver was high - back in 2010.  I did not do it on Ebay. I sold it on Craigslist. My set was monogrammed which made the value less than if it had had plain handles. It was also a Wallace pattern which is not as popular as Gorham sterling. I researched prices on Ebay, reduced the set's value by about 25% and sold it as a lot. I never gave anyone my address and used my cell phone number. I had the buyer meet me at my bank. I told him I was only going to accept cash - I even had the teller check the bills for me before he left. I deposited the money right then and there. It was a very smooth transaction. I was happy and buyer was happy. If he had hung onto the silver for another 8 months, he made some money on it. I paid a semester of college tuition for my son with it. You only have 12 pieces which should make selling it individually a whole lot easier. Prepare for questions as to the weight in grams of each piece. Take good pictures.

[Emerald_Door]

I used to sell antique sterling silver in an upscale antique mall in Austin, TX. I still occasionally sell silver. I'll be happy to help you.

[RetroMonde]

Sorry I didn't get back sooner with photos. This is a small (butter?) knife from the set, front & back since they're different, and a closeup of the marks on a fork. Some but not all of the set has initials.

[RetroMonde]

OMG those pix are HUGE. Sorry about that- I'll see if I can resize them.

[bettyblackbent]

POPPIES. Holy moly.


www.ebay.com/itm/Gorham-Art-Nouveau-H-Series-Heavy-and-Ornate-Sterling-Poppies-Spoon-/272363734185?rmvSB=true&nma=true&si=UgUZGaCvCS5G5d1GoS7l6InVlLs%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

[RetroMonde]

I sure wish I had THAT spoon! Wow, people sure knew how to serve dinner back in the day. Beats my Better Homes & Garden set from Walmart lol. Unfortunately our silver set is just the regular stuff and not matching serving pieces.

[Emerald_Door]

Your pictures are really good! It can be hard to photograph silver.

Your pattern is called (surprise) Poppy, designed by William Codman. It was a multi motif pattern, so the design on some pieces may be slightly different (the poppy facing in a different direction, for instance).

The beautiful spoon Betty posted is a different pattern. The "H" series are specialty pieces that weren't made in entire sets.

Do you have any serving pieces? They will sell for more than place pieces, especially if you have any unusual ones. I would probably try selling all the place pieces together, then list the serving pieces separately. If you try to list every piece one at a time, it could take forever.

Here are sold listings, some of which are not relevant.
www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=gorham%20poppy%20sterling&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&rt=nc&_trksid=p2045573.m1684

Here's an 83 piece set, no serving pieces, that sold for $1450 with Best Offer.
www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Sterling-Silver-Flatware-Gorham-Poppy-Pattern-Set-83pcs-3890-gms-/162183949523?hash=item25c2eaacd3%3Ag%3A3xwAAOSwgmJXw1p9&nma=true&si=mcxWwNy1vM%252Bbuo8bWIxF5%252BQapjo%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

[Emerald_Door]

By the way, silver is at a fairly low price now, which doesn't affect highly collectible silver much, but would result in a much lower price if you sold it to someone for the silver value. Your beautiful silver is, unfortunately, not highly collectible and popular. The set I posted sold for considerably less than scrap value, which you shouldn't do, even when we consider that the weight in the listing includes the stainless steel knife blades.

Silver is at about $19 per ounce now, and that's for pure silver. Sterling is 925/1000. The price was lower a year ago, but in 2011 it averaged around $35 per ounce. I would set the minimum price above what you would get from a scrapper or a "we buy gold and silver" business. If it doesn't sell, then you can sell it to those people if you want your money right away.

If you're willing to wait in order to get more money, you could sell it piece by piece or wait for silver prices to go up. If you want the money soon, sell it as a set.

[Emerald_Door]

One more thing, when you look at the sold listings. Some of the higher prices are from silver dealers who are willing to relist for years to get the price they want.

You might try breaking up the set into 12 dinner forks, 12 butter spreaders, etc. That seems to be a successful strategy for some sellers.

[RetroMonde]

I'll take another look when I'm at the farm today- there could be more pieces to the set in other drawers but I really don't expect to find anything else. As I said, none of our family NEEDS or would use silver flatware. We really don't have a fancy dishes & silver lifestyle but at one time there was money in my Dad's side of the family... not anymore. But I actually already have a set of silver I inherited that I kept because I LOVE the oak leaf & acorn motif but we rarely use it. DH refuses to eat with silver forks... no idea why.

If silver value is at a low right now, I'll drag my feet about listing it. Since the holidays are coming up I could list the set at a happy price to see what happens. We could use the money to do some needed repairs at the farm but none of them are necessary right now. Thanks a lot for the suggestions!

[bettyblackbent]

DH refuses to eat with silver forks.

Apparently it makes food taste funny to some people. Might be a genetic thing, like smelling Bakelite or the asparagus pee thing.

[titus730]

The silver could interact with his tooth fillings.

I just wanted to say that pattern is gorgeous. Love the fact that the pattern of the forks is slightly different than the knives, etc. And that seller might have made more than $1,500.00 if her photos had been better. Hers were blurry.