Lol, I went to search about silver and the first result was my own post from 2 years ago. Still in the exact same spot, and hoping to get something done before chanukah.
It sounds like the only way to get decent value out of this is to sell privately, which I can probably do independently from buying a new one. And worst case if I'm not finding buyers I can also sell it to a store by weight.
Any suggestions on where to go for good prices on a new one? Hazorfim seems to have some nice 'sales' right now, but I have no idea if their 'retail' prices are inflated relative to other places.