Hello, I have been getting into collecting the silver art bars (love the America series) and looking through ebay has yielded quite a few results for '1 troy oz 100 mil .999 silver bullion' - with a bit of research I find that these are in actuality only 100 mil 'thick' of silver over another compound (usually copper from what I understand). I have seen sets of 10 go for 60 usd and yet singles go for 35-40 (spot + ) each!?! Is this a ploy to profit on the uneducated? Is there anything we can do against this? Thank you, David
All I have is references from ebay sorry bars in bulk http://cgi.ebay.com/10-1-TROY-OZ-100-MILLS-999-SILVER-clad-MAPLE-LEAF-BARS-/290547162880?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43a5f5df00 single bar sold http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&_trksid=p4340.l2557&rt=nc&nma=true&item=120697387193&si=JT%252B%252B6PnggkK8Q0OEC9hbM7E8Iws%253D&viewitem=&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWAX%3AIT
It's a ploy. They prey on the uninformed and rip them off. Not much can be done because somewhere in their description some of them usually include the fact that they are plated. Not everyone reads that far or knows what that means. I have relatives that show off their silver-plated cutlery and usually say, "yep, these are pure silver!" You can't tell them otherwise.
There is nothing much you can do about this because as long as ebayers are buying these, then ebay sellers will continue to put these up for auction. The only thing that a person can do is to read the ebay description very carefully and to understand that 100 mills is just a "fancy" name for silver plated. The ebayers who are bidding on these may just be looking at 1-oz .999 and ignoring the "100 mill" part of the stamping. The ebay buyers who think that they are getting a good deal on one of these 1-oz 100 mill .999 art bars for $35.00 will be in for a rude awakening when they decide to sell it locally to a local dealer and the local dealer ends up telling that person that it is not .999 pure silver. As for real 1-oz .999 pure silver art bars, they are currently fetching winning bids of over $40 for common minted silver art bars. A lot of the Hamilton Mint silver art bars will have winning bids of $40 to $47.
They are committing fraud by claiming to sell Troy Ounces, a Troy ounce is a measurement of the precious metal content only. So they are not selling 1 troy ounce of anything.
unfortunately they are doing nothing more than describing what the item says it is. I saw bids on plastic holders for $40 because the picture has a ASE or a real one troy ounce bar in it. You can not wait till the last seconds to bid on something that you have not previously looked over. Of course the sellers of supplies have their own section, but can list where they want. Same for the mills items, I find it wrong that they can be listed in the bullion section but eBay allows it none the less. Bidder be warned!
The troy ounce is an ancient measurement and has weighed many things other than precious metals in the past. Precious metals are weighed currently in troy ounces or troy pounds ( 12 troy ounces), but the measurement is not exclusive to precious metals. So a copper bar could be weighed in troy ounces and not be false. Misleading, certainly, but not false if it did weigh such. I have seen the wholesale prices on these bars under $3 if purchased in 100+ , mainly to mislead people on eBay, Craig's list, and some coin shows. Jim
