10 'Worthless' Old Spoons and Forks I've Paid Real Money For (Check Your Drawer)

I've been a pawnbroker in the same small Georgia town for 31 years, and in this video I'm showing you the 10 things in your silverware drawer I pay real money for — the sterling, coin silver, and valuable patterns hiding in plain sight among the plated junk, in the drawer you open every single day. Last month a woman brought me her family's "good silver" — the guarded set from the sideboard — plus a rubber-banded bundle of junk drawer spoons she wanted hauled away. The good set was silverplate, worth $40. The junk drawer spoons? I paid her $1,860. You'll learn the four-second flip that separates real sterling from plate, why "1847 Rogers Bros" doesn't mean what you think it means, how to spot valuable pre-Civil War American coin silver spoons marked only with a maker's name, which antique souvenir spoons are actually worth money, how to read English hallmarks and find the walking lion that guarantees sterling, why heavy Mexican Taxco silver and anything marked Spratling deserves a second look, the Victorian figural napkin rings that are the one silverplate worth real money, what Tiffany & Co sterling flatware patterns like Audubon bring, Baltimore Kirk repoussé silver, the three pattern names — Francis I, Grande Baroque, Chantilly — where a single fork can bring $60 to $90, and the ninety-second trick to price every piece in your drawer tonight using the Replacements pattern database. Before you sell, donate, or scrap anything: don't polish it, don't let a we-buy-gold kiosk weigh your marked sterling or coin silver, and don't break up sets — even partial sets sell by the piece. And an engraved monogram doesn't ruin a good piece, no matter what a buyer tells you. If you're clearing an estate, going through a parent's kitchen, or downsizing — flip every piece before anything goes to a yard sale, donation box, or scrap scale. Tell me in the comments what you found in your drawer — and what state you're in. Southern drawers and Northern drawers hold different silver, and I read every comment. Subscribe for more from behind the counter — next time we're opening the dresser drawer: there's a watch that turns up in bedside tables all over this country, and the right ones bring $2,000 and up. I'll show you the three names on the dial. #silverware #sterlingsilver #antiques #hiddentreasure #estatesale