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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;1970 Silver Art, post: 920528, member: 18828&quot;]Maybe I am wrong on this but I think that a majority of the silver that was melted back in the earily &#039;80&#039;s silver silver art bars that were minted in the 1970&#039;s. There were more silver art bars around at that time. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>For example, take the silver art bars that were minted by Hamilton Mint. There were a lot of them that were minted between 1973 to 1976. There were about 10,000 of each Hamilton Mint bar that was minted back then and there were several series that Hamilton Mint made. A Hamilton Mint series of 50 art bars had a mintage of 10,000 PER art bar in that series. So, with those kinds of mintage numbers, then a whole lot of those Hamilton Mint bars had to be melted down during the early &#039;80&#039;s. Again this is just a wild guess on my part. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>When I looked at the 4th edition of Archie Kidd&#039;s book called &quot;An Indexed Guide Book of Silver Art Bars&quot;, there were some data on certain silver art bars that were melted down and it gave the number of bars for that particular silver bar that were melted down. I do not know how they got the number of bars that were melted down but that it must have took a lot of deep searching by the authors of that silver art bar price guide. I thought that was interesting to me. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>I do not think that there were many records that were kept in terms of how much of any particular silver coin or silver bar that was melted back then but I could be wrong on that too. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>I am guessing on this too I think that a lot of silver bars and coins that were melted in the &#039;80&#039;s was needed for industrial use. I guess at that time it was better for a person to send a silver coin or bar to the smelter as opposed to trying to sell that particular silver coin or bar on the retal level because since the silver went up to $50/oz, I lot of people probably could not afford that silver coin or bar and it went unsold. I guess it was better for the dealer to send it to the smelter and get money for it right away as opposed to attempting to sell it to the retail marketplace and not selling for $50 spot silver price back then. In other words, I think that there was more use and demand for it as an industrial metal as opposed to selling it to collectors. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>I do not know if this answers Silver Surfer&#039;s question or not but this is just a wild guess for why silver was melted back then and why we could possibly have another &quot;big melt&quot; if silver were to go back to $50 (or more). Again I could be wrong on all of this.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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