My favorite 1970's silver art bar "finds"

It's a pretty nice bar, and i'll think i would pay the same price if i could find it over here.

On my side, I was lucky this week on Ebay, and purchased myself a Hamilton Mint Bar 'HAM-130 Rockwell's beloved - First Cover' minted at 10.000 ex -for only $12.62 (spot was $15.33 at that moment!)

 

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Excellent art bar!!! Excellent Price!!!! Very good job on that purchase Orpheus72. That is rare to find a silver art bar at below spot price of silver on Ebay or anywhere else. That is amazing ebay score IMO. The Norman Rockwell Hamilton Mint silver art bars have excellent art work to them IMO. One day, I will plan to get a Norman Rockwell but it will probably be at a local coin show and if the price is right for me then I will plan to get one too.

My main goal for the rest of this year is to find some '70's USSC minted silver art bars at coin shows in my local area. I love to get a few USSC minted silver art bars with animal themes on them. Those are the best '70's silver art made in my opinion. They have a bunch of them on ebay but I think that I can beat the ebay prices when I buy them at coin shows in my area.

Congratulations again on the Hamilton Mint Norman Rockwell silver art bar find on ebay.

 

yeah, even i was wondered when I found out that it only went $12.62
I had placed a bid of $15, but never tought i would get it.
I hope to have the same luck in the next few weeks :rolling:

 

And once again found a bargain on ebay.

This time a Madison Mint 'MAD-2 Adriatic N°31' for $8.99
Even with International shipping costs (The seller will ship first class international for $4) this beautiful silver art bar stays well below spot silver price. As I just bought it tonight, i can't post a proper picture of it, but here is the ebaylink: http://cgi.ebay.nl/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300325107008&ru=http%3A%2F%2Fshop.ebay.nl%3A80%2F%3F_from%3DR40%26_trksid%3Dp3907.m38.l1313%26_nkw%3D300325107008%26_sacat%3DSee-All-Categories%26_fvi%3D1&_rdc=1

I realy dont get it that the beauty of silver art bars isn't appreciated anymore. They do are beautiful, have diversity, are a collecting opportunity and are not to expensive, and you always get back the silver-price in case of emergency. But nobody seems to be interested in them anymore as i was the only bidder at $8.99 asking price.

 

That is a an excellent find on that silver art bar IMO. Madison mint also makes some good art bars IMO. I have a lot of Madison Mint art bars.

That is strange because here in the U.S. I would consider myself lucky if I can win an auction on ebay and pay only $4.00 over spot spilver for a '70's art bar. The U.S. ebay bids on '70's art bars range between 6-14 bids per art bar on ebay. The winning bids average over $20 for a 1-oz '70's silver art bar. I usually get sniped at the end of a silver art bar auction.

You are doing much better than me on ebay in terms of getting art bars for very low prices (especially under spot silver). I usually have better luck finding art bars locally at my coin shop or at coin shows.

I did manage to buy a '70's silver art bar at my local coin shop this morning. It is a USSC silver bar. I will post it later today.

 

I went to my local coin dealer this weekend and I found this '70's silver art bar:











It is a 1-oz "Happy Anniversary" silver art bar. It is minted by The United States Silver Corporation (USSC) in 1974. I paid $16.00 for it (Friday spot silver close was $14.07/oz). This bar has toning on it but that is fine with me. I will leave it the way it is.

 

I found another '70's silver art bar today when I went to my local coin shop today. I bought this for $15.00 (spot silver was $12.82/oz at the time of purchase).:







It is a 1-oz 1975 Hamilton Mint silver art bar from the "Wonders of America" series. This silver art bar is heavily toned on the front, back and the sides. This is one of the most heavily toned silver bars that I own. I will keep it the way it is. The "F.S" on the bottom of the reverse side of the bar stands for Fine Silver.

I had to use the flash feature of my digital camera to get a clearer picture of the serial number on the side of this silver art bar because of the toning on the side of this bar. Ther serial number is 5557.

 

Nice find. Good price too. My store has a few at $3 over spot.
I finally bought air tites for all my bars today. Lo and behold just like someone said some don't fit. So I selected the best of the soft plastic holders the rest came out of and put the non air tite fitters in them. Now I have extra brand new airtites.
I found that these do not fit air tites:
Patrick mint Curtiss Jenny
Imperial Russian Seal

And here's what did fit:
Babe Ruth
The General
Mother Lode mint Reno Nev, with dice
Boston Tea party
Englehard with eagle

 

Nice find.

I also got a new bar, a Madison Mint MAD-12 Majestic Eagle (W/O serial number). I've also bought it for $15 when silver was around $13.

 

Congrats on the Madison Mint score Orpheus72. In my opinion, that is a good price that you paid for that silver art bar.

 

That is a sweet bar. Thanks for sharing!!!

 

Hey OP: I really admire what you're doing; you've found a neat, definite direction to pursue.

re: your new bar; I once was inside that building at the Air Force Academy.

 

I won this auction on ebay last Saturday.........







It is a silver art bar that shows the 14th president of the United States Franklin Pierce and the First Lady Jane Pierce on the Front of the silver bar. This silver art bar was minted by World Mint in 1974. I won this silver art bar on ebay and the total price that I paid for it was $15.62 (spot silver was $12.65 at the time). Normally, when I place my bid on ebay on a silver art bar, I will set my max bid at $4 over spot and that max bid factors in shipping costs. The price of $15.62 would have been $2.97 over spot price but there was one important detail that overlooked by not looking at the ebay deception. The actual weight of the silver art bar is 0.81 troy oz and not a full 1-oz that I mistakenly assumed. Upon further reading of the description, the ebay seller clearly stated that it weighed 0.81 oz. That was a mistake on my part from being careless and not reading the whole description of the product. Spot price for 0.81 oz of silver was $10.25. As a result I ended up paying $5.37 over spot ($15.62 - $10.25 = $5.37) for this silver art bar instead of the $2.97 over spot. I cannot believe that I made such a mistake like that but I did. Despite that mistake, I like this silver art bar very much and I do not regret this purchase at all.


I also learned from the ebay seller that when this art bar was minted, I think it was meant for the weight of around 0.8 troy oz and not a full 1-oz weight. The ebay seller was using the Archie Kidd art bar price guide for his information when he emailed me the answer about the weight of this silver bar. As you will notice in my reverse pic of this bar, it is not stamped with the weight of 1-oz. It is just stamped with "999 Fine Silver".




This silver art bar is slightly thinner than the average '70's silver art bar.




I used my magnifier to see what this was and it looked like "JH". I am not sure what that means.

Overall, I am happy with this ebay purchase.

 

Looks good. I like the cameo effect.

 

It's NOT a World Mint bar, but a WORLD INC. Mint bar !
It was a reverse from the World Mint, but the issuing authority was World Inc.

In the next link i've uploaded a scan of the World Inc Mint page from the guide-book's fifth edition (downloadable and printable - 2MB) that will tell you all the details of this 37 bar set.

http://users.skynet.be/bs137951/World, INc.jpg

For that JH inscription, it is nowhere mentioned in the book, and i've never heard of it myself, but it could well be the artists initials.

Even that you 'overpaid' your bar, it still is a beauty, and i wouldn't have any regret buying it for $16.

 

I stand corrected and thanks for this link. I will download it to my computer.

I have not regrets at all because I still wanted this silver art bar. I did not pay close attention to the ebay description. I looked at it again (after I won the auction) and I saw that the seller clearly stated that it weighed 0.81 troy oz. I love this art bar very much.

Thanks for correcting me on this Orpheus72.

 

Vroooommm!!!!!!.......








It is a 1-oz silver art bar that was minted in Switzerland in 1973 (Swiss-5 in the art bar price guide according to the ebay seller). I bought this as a second chance offer during the July 4 weekend on ebay. I originally lost on this ebay auction because the winning bid at that time was $18.51 and the bidder that originally won it would have paid a total of $20.50 ($18.51 + $1.99 shipping). Since that ebay winner did not want to pay for it, a second chance offer was presented to me by ebay because I had the second highest bid (my bid was $15.31).

I paid a total of $17.30 ($15.31 + 1.99 shipping cost) for this silver art bar (spot silver was $13.37/oz at that time).

I am very satisfied with this silver art bar and the ebay transaction went smoothly.

 

It's indeed a nice looking bar.
The seller provided you the right info on the bar, it is a Switserland Mint bar SWISS-5 'Motorcycles' issued in 1973 and has a mintage of 5000 pieces. It has been rated with a rarity of R-3 ($5 over spot) in 'an indexed guidebook of silver art bars revised fifth edition 2007'

 

OK, now you have my interest. Trains and Motorcycles. Did they make Civil War bars as well?

 

Sure there are silver art bars dedicated to the civil war. There are too many to write them all here, but i know the Hamilton Mint (American Revolution), World Wide Mint (Heritage series), The Silver Mine (American Patriots) and The Columbia Mint (Greatest Events of the Civil War) have done full sets on that issue, and most known mints have at least one bar that has something to do with the American History and/or civil war.

Hope this will encourage you to collect those beauties too