Reed and Barton Francis 1 - Service for 12 (96pc), plus assorted serving pieces

A set of Francis I in this quantity retails for around $5,000-$6,000. Your best bet for realizing as much of this as possible is to shop around with several different auction houses, antique dealers, and matching services. Smelters, coin shops, and cash-for-gold businesses will not only destroy them, they'll offer you criminally low prices to do so.

I would strongly caution against a valuation on this set at $5000-$6000 in the current market. Silver flatware is a tough sale and generally retailers are not looking to acquire it outside of auction/wholesale value as it sits a long, long time in most cases. 

A 104 piece set sold at John Moran auctions on July 28 of this year for $1200+buyers premium vs. a presale estimate of $2000-$3000.

A 105 piece set sold at Peachtree and Bennett auction house on June 11 of this year for $2000.

I believe the "melt" value with silver at $15/oz and with sterling silver at .925 purity at around $1300-$1350, so auction values are always at or slightly above melt values. A bit more insight- when you send your items to a smelter (silver in particular, gold has less fees), you can expect 70-85% return from a fair dealer. With an auctioneer you will generally pay 15-25% in fees for an item of this value and have to wait for an appropriate auction, a process that from start to end payment can be 6 months- a year. It is a beautiful set but realistically I wouldn't get hopes up for a $4000-$5000 check anytime soon.

I agree with the idea of using scrap value as a basis and work up from there. Retail values are not a good indicator of what goes on in the secondary market.