do pawn shops buy stainless steel silverware

[ReidRose]

Ah, the great flatware conundrum. You've got a hefty collection of stainless steel silverware and dreams of turning it into a pile of cash at the local pawn shop. Well, you might want to hold off on planning that victory parade.

Generally speaking, pawn shops will look at your stainless steel silverware with about as much excitement as a cat at a dog show. They're in the business of valuable goods, and their true love in the cutlery world is sterling silver. Sterling silver flatware is marked with "Sterling" or ".925" because it's 92.5% pure, precious silver. That's the stuff that has intrinsic value.

Your trusty stainless steel, on the other hand, has almost no precious metal content. Its value is essentially its scrap metal price, which might fetch you a glamorous 10 to 50 cents per pound. A pawn broker would likely spend more time on the paperwork than they'd make on the deal.

Now, there is one tiny, shimmering exception to this rule. If your stainless steel set happens to be from a ridiculously high-end designer brand, a shop might be interested. In that case, they aren't buying the metal; they're buying the prestigious name stamped on the handle. But for the vast majority of stainless steel sets, you'd have better luck selling them at a garage sale or donating them. So, unless your forks are famous, the pawn shop is probably not your huckleberry.