Silver is a little over $12 an ounce today while gold is $903 an ounce.
I hear people tell me the design is worth the high markup of these Tiffany pieces--but to me this makes no sense. If it was a design created just for me by the artist, then I would pay for the design, but Tiffany pieces are mass market pieces, probably made by machine. So I don't see the sense paying so much than the silver is worth, for the 'design'.
Of course Macy's gold is not the best quality either. I would find an Indian or Chinese jeweler if I were you. they have the most beautiful things.
If you really love silver (which I actually do and I have a lot of it) I would look into the older Taxco pieces which were really made by artists in limited quantities and also in much better silver than sterling. Sterling is only .925 pure--you can find antique jewelry 940, 960 or even 980 pure. They cost a lot nowadays but you are really getting something. My grandmother used to give us the very pure silver when we were young and it has the most beautiful glow and feels very soft and heavy. Plus it doesn't tarnish. It's actually the copper mixed in with sterling that tarnishes (and makes it more hard). Unless the jeweler coats it with that awful shiny rhodium--and then it doesn't look like silver anymore.
No offense, but my grandmother would have said that .925 (sterling), made by Tiffany or anybody else, is only good for forks and knives, not for jewelry. Nobody from Central America who saw or has the beautiful old jewelry would be impressed by Tiffany anything.
I think there was some beautiful old silver from other area of the world, too, like Scandinavia, people like Georg Jensen.
But be careful if you decide to buy some of this--there are a lot of fakes of the older, nice stuff, so you have to do research.
JMHO.