Agreed - the Archie Kidd guides have better info about original mintages and relative values - lots of art bars were melted in the 1970s due to spot price spikes and lack of sales, so existing populations are hard to estimate S.A.C. sells the Kidd guides - expensive but valuable reference sources for silver art bars - https://silverartcollector.com/store/product-category/books/
I think in general, it is with out saying that populations can get skewed However if the actual refiner kept accurate records atleast you would know Which ones were rare from the start, which is the best case scenario.
It’s pretty simple to tell how rare something is just by how often it comes to market. I collect beer steins, if one comes to market once every five years it is considered rare..If there is always one on eBay it’s not rare.
in adding to this you really need to have a place start, population wise Not everybody sells at once...LOL, and some people may have a few of One thing, so assuming something is rare is not your best bet Here,s a great example, this particular note is a Series 681 $10 Military Payment Certificate with a population of only 3,200,000 considered Very low, and only certain cereal and plate numbers produce high grades Such as this example, but they did have burning parties which cut this Number down considerably.
How's this for a tiny bar? JMC mint (1 gram bar) Johnson Matthey Canada $878.85 an ounce. Anyone know anything about it? When I get it in hand, I'll take better pictures and submit it to the allengelhard website gallery.
False alarm on the 1 gram JMC bar....turns out to be a CMC mint bar. Seller refunded the purchase price. Guess that's why I couldn't find any other Johnson matthey bars that looked like it. Was hoping for a rare Johnson matthey Canadian version. Well on to the next hunt
I happened to buy from a local dealer a few days ago a group of "stuff" like tenth ounce eagles, world silver for kids, etc. In the lot, he had 8 1 gram silver bars. I think I paid like $6 for all 8. They are in the safe somewhere. They get as small as a gram, though I have no idea who is paying that premium. The last time I bought bigger bars I was in downtown chicago, and was having to walk around at night. I stopped at Harlan Berk and bought two poured 10 ounce Englehards, one because they are kind of cool, and two, it's not the worst thing to have in your pocket walking around a big city at night.