My favorite 1970's silver art bar "finds"

The Scenic City is good........





This is a 1-oz "Lookout Mountain - Chattanooga, Tenn." silver art bar (WWM-1). It was minted in 1974 by the World Wide Mint. I bought it on August 21, 2009 at the Blue Ridge Numismatic Association coin show for $16.00 (spot silver was $14.15/oz at the time). This bar has toning on the front and the back. You cannot see it in the second picture but on the bottom of the reverse side of the silver art bar it says "Wright-Cin. O."

 

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An ebay "victory" at last.........





It is a 1-oz "John Hart - Farmer 1711-1779" silver art bar. This art bar was minted by the Hamilton Mint in 1978 and is part of the "Signers of the Declaration of Independence" series. The "Signers of the Declaration of Independence" series has a total of 56 silver art bars. This bar has toning on the front of the bar. The reverse side of this bar has a little toning on it. I won this art bar on ebay on Labor Day for $18.50 (spot silver was $16.22/oz at the time).

 

Very cool, I like the toning on that last silver art bar.

 

It's a face-off....................







This is a 1-oz "Cox - Nixon Battle of the Tapes" silver art bar (COL-14). This silver art bar was minted by the Colonial Mint in 1973. I bought this silver art bar on August 21 at the 50th Blue Ridge Numismatic Association Coin show and I paid $16.00 for it (spot silver was $14.15 at that time). Serial # 01832. This art bar shows Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox and President Richard Nixon.



I went back outside to take this close-up picture. It was starting to get dark outside when I took this pic and I changed locations where the light was not as good and that is why this pic looks different.

 

resized pictures

For all the romantics everywhere................





It is a 1-oz "Be my Valentine" silver art bar. This Bar was minted by the Madison Mint in 1977. I bought from my local coin dealer last Thursday (October 15) for $19.00 (spot silver closed at $17.34/oz).

 

Nice bars! I have a couple from the early seventies that my Grandmother gave me, and I cherish them. I think a lot of people don't understand that the spot price for silver is for 1000 ounce bars. To make the silver into ASEs or bars or anything requires an expense, and that is where premiums come in.

 

Trick or Treat.........





It is a 1-oz silver "Trick or Treat - Halloween 1974" silver art bar. It was minted by the United States Silver Corporation (USSC) in 1974. I bought it at the Tennessee State Numismatic Society (TSNS) Fall coin show. I paid $17.50 for this bar (silver spot price closed today at $17.39/oz according to Kitco.com).

 

Columbia Mint

can anyone help me with value or rarity of a silver art bar collection...
I gained possesion of it sometime ago, but have never got around to doing the research...any info would be greatly appreciated...

the collection is the complete 50 bar set of the Greatest Events of the American Revolution, by the Columbia Mint...24 kt gold plated 999 silver...

aside from several individual bars on ebay, i can't seem to find much history regarding the Columbia Mint history...but I'm guessing these may have been a dime a dozen back in the 70's...and not as rare as I wish they were...lol

 

'The Columbia Mint' has just done one series of bars, the 'Greatest events of the american revolution'.
All the bars are struck by World Wide Mint starting in 1974 to 1977.
They were minted in .999 silver bars at a mintage of 10.000 each and in silver .999 24Kt Gold plated with a mintage of 5.000 each (each bar was individually serialized)

They are cataloged in An Indexed Catalog of Silver Art Bars lov V under TCM1 to TCM-50 (silver ones) and TCM-1G to TCM-50G (goldplated ones)

Their value is estimated a raity value (above spot silver price) of $20 for the plain silver ones and $25 for the goldplated ones. (See attached scans of the guide)

 

Thanks Orpheus72!! You provided more info than I ever expected...
when I get a chance, I'll post some photos...also, any idea of how many sets were minted?

as a parent of two kids ages 12 & 13 and maybe pursuing the hobby, I plan on holding onto the set for them to enjoy...could use info on wall mounted display cases, individual bar enclosures, etc..

Thanks Again!

 

No problem, JFK, i'm happy to help a fellow art bar collector.

According the mintage numbers, there should be 10.000 sets of silver bars and 5.000 sets of goldplated silver bars, but not everyone had bought the full series at that time. Complete 50 bar series, with matching serial numbers do exist in small numbers, but are considered 'rare'.

On display cases and so on, i can't give you much info, as the posibilities we have here in Europe are different than the those you could find in the USA. I myself have a standing display case and i mounted each bar in an airtite on a plexi eazle.

 

Nice to see this thread again. And thanks for the detailed information.

 

None of my business,but do you feel secure enough to hang over 1250 dollars worth of silver on the wall? It would make a nice target for a theif to find. Just saying.....

 

I am assuming that you are addressing me since this is my thread and here is my response.......

It would not be impossible to find me but it would IMO be very hard to find me. The thief would not know my real name. The thief would not know my physical address. Most of my silver collection is hidden so a thief will not find it. The pics of the silver art bars that I collected are just a small part of my silver art bar collection. I have many more '70's silver art bars than what I have posted on this forum. I do not plan to post my entire collection on this (or any other) forum. I plan to just post certain select recent purchases of '70's silver art bars.

I do not talk about my collection to anybody offline (except to my parents). Nobody in my city of residence knows about my '70's silver art bar collecting hobby. The only thieves that I am concerned about are the thieves that live in my city. I am not concerned about the thieves who are online.

And you are forgetting one thing.................This is a coin collecting forum and other posters have posted pics of gold coins and other PMs that are worth far more than my '70's silver art bars. I will continue to post selected purchases of '70's silver art bars on this forum (and on others).

As for the thief (or thieves) who might be lurking on this forum and wanting to rob someone...........too much work and too much risk and low reward IMO. If a person decides to make a dumb decision to rob somebody, then that person is going to probably stay locally and not lurk on a coin collecting forum to try to rob somebody that might live hundreds (or thousands) of miles away.

I will always have a small concern about thieves breaking in my residence and taking my stuff. I have always had that concern well before I started collecting PM's but I refuse to live as a paranoid person. I just take some precautions to ensure that my collection will not be found by a thief. A thief cannot steal what a thief cannot see or find.

Just saying.........

 

Coke, the "Real Thing"..................





It is a 1-oz "Coca-Cola Bottling Company - 75th Anniversary 1899 - 1974- Chattanooga, TN" (WWM-56) silver art bar. It was minted by the World Wide Mint. I bought this silver bar from a local coin dealer today and I paid $25.00 for it (spot silver at the time was $17.47). There is some toning on this bar on the front and the back as well as the sides. The silver bar is stamped "One Troy Oz. .999 Fine Silver" on the side.

 

After losing 16 straight auctions on ebay, it does feel good to finally win an ebay auction.............





It came in the mail today. It is a "Benjamin Disraeli" silver art round. It was minted in 1971. However, I will admit that I do not know the private mint that produced this silver art round. I weighed it on my digital scale and it weighed 1 troy oz. It is hard to tell from the pictures but "Earl" on the front of this silver round is slightly raised from the surface of the art round. It is not raised that much from the surface of this art round but enough to notice when I look at it from the side.

I won this '70's silver art round on ebay on Super Bowl Sunday (February 7, 2010) and I paid $18.55 for it. Spot silver was about $15.10 at the time that I won this ebay auction Sunday night. I usually do not collect silver art rounds that much since I prefer '70's silver art bars but I like the art work and the "raised" style appearance on the front and the fact that it is a 1971 mint year since this is my first 1971 mint year silver piece of any kind. The ebay transaction went smoothly and I am satisfied with this purchase.

As I mentioned earlier, I do not know the name of the mint that produced this silver art round but if there is anybody out there that knows who minted this art round, then feel free to tell me by posting on this thread because I honestly have no idea who minted this silver art round.

I apologize for the small pics. I am trying to get the pics bigger.

 

Cool! I never thought of bidding during a major event. I'll keep it in mind

 

Don't make me pull out my PAT-9 up in here!!!

Listed in Rood as Number PAT-9: "Issued 1973, Weight 1 oz, Mintage 10,742

 

Sorry 1st pics weren't that good.

Listed in Rood as Number PAT-9: "Issued 1973, Weight 1 oz, Mintage 10,742

 

Greetings, 1970 Silver Art. I just discovered the "silver art bar" talk here, and wanted to chime in. First I saw a nearby thread and posted there, but I see this is the more appropriate thread to put this in, so here's what I said in the other thread:

Welcome, Axxa! It's nice to see you and Orpheus over here. I've been trying for months to sign up on GoldIsMoney but they simply won't let me sign up. Anyway, I was doing a google search for some bars and this site came up and then I realized I've been a member here for almost a decade! So it's great to see you guys (and others) over here discussing silver art bars, since I can't seem to do it on GIM.

Victor, as a precautionary measure, I always liberate all my silver from whatever original packaging they're in because in many cases, the foil/packaging contains PVC, which is a big no-no. Then I give each bar a good rinse in acetone to remove any contaminants, especially poisonous PVC residue, then put the art bars that fit (standard sizes) into Airtites. The ones that don't fit I put into Saflips (made of harmless Mylar). For bigger bars, I put them into food-quality Zip-Loc bags. I hate the scourge of PVC, which has ruined many of my valuable coins, and many, many holders in use over the past 30 years contain that disgusting poison.

I have a question for Orpheus or Axxa or whoever might know. I bought a Hamilton Mint American Wildlife collection, in its original box with original mylar-based holders for each of the 50 bars, and they all have simply gorgeous green/blue/turquoise peripheral toning. On the edge of each is stamped the fineness (.999) and some other symbols, and a serial number (0817 in my case). I think I saw on Axxa's website that this series had a mintage of 250, which, in light of my serial number of 817, doesn't make sense. Can anyone clarify the mintage of this series?

Read more: http://www.cointalk.com/t54946-4/#ixzz0fVfhGfrT

I'd like to address another issue, concerning the "producer" of many bars listed in some books as "Switzerland". Switzerland is a country, not a producer of bars, so we have to a little bit of sleuthing to find out who the producer of these bars was/is. And we have a fantastic clue: the CHI assayer's mark inside a circle. This is a trademark of Valcambi S.A., a melter/assayer and renowned producer of precious metals bars for many decades. They usually do Credit Suisse's bars, too. They are still in business and produce very high quality material. I'd like to make a note of this so people don't continue the mistake of referring to these bars as "Swiss" or "Switzerland" bars. They're clearly Valcambi bars.

And here's a quote from Morpheus 2 pages ago:

I have this bar too, and after reading your post I went back to look at it and sure enough, the first two digits in the serial number (00085) are like yours; the first one looks like an O (letter) and the next looks like a zero (number) and get this - the third looks like the O again! I'll get pictures eventually.