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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;1970 Silver Art, post: 1141424, member: 18828&quot;]A couple of purchases from last week..........</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://i741.photobucket.com/albums/xx54/COScollect/PopeyeFront.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://i741.photobucket.com/albums/xx54/COScollect/PopeyeBack.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://i741.photobucket.com/albums/xx54/COScollect/PopeyeSide.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>It is a 1-oz &quot;Popeye&#039;s 50th&quot; silver art bar (TRG-19).&nbsp; It was minted in 1979 by GreatHouse Productions.&nbsp; I bought it on ebay last Friday (Mar. 25) and I got it yesterday in the mail.&nbsp; It is has a proof finish and there is no toning on this silver art bar.&nbsp; It came in an airtite but I took it out of the airtite to take pictures of it.&nbsp; I put it back in the airtite to preserve the condition.&nbsp; This was an ebay Buy-It-Now purchase(BIN) and I paid $177.49 for it (3-25-2011 spot silver = $37.32/oz).&nbsp; This was the lowest price that I can find for this particular art bar on ebay.&nbsp; The price of $177.49 that I paid for this silver art bar breaks my personal record of paying the highest dollar amount for a 1-oz silver art bar.&nbsp; It does not bother me that I paid this amount for this art bar because I am just buying what I like. </p><p><br /></p><p>The 2009 Archie silver art bar price guide lists the mintage number of 185 for this particular silver art bar.&nbsp; Serial # 172 (out of 185).&nbsp; This low mintage is typical for a GreatHouse silver art bar and that makes GreatHouse bars very hard to find locally at a .999 generic silver premium and the only place that I can seem to find them is on ebay (usually as a BIN auction).&nbsp; Based on my observations, most GreatHouse silver art bars will sell for between $75 to $200 on ebay (regular winning bids).&nbsp; These GreatHouse art bars are IMO some of the best rare silver art bars in existence especially with this reverse type.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>After buying that Popeye GreatHouse silver art bar on ebay, I had some extra cash to spend so on that following Saturday (Mar. 26), I decided to check out the local coin shops to see what silver art bars (if any) they had.&nbsp; I went to a few coin shops to shop around and overall, I did not find many silver art bars.&nbsp; I did, however, find a silver art bar that is interesting.&nbsp; Here is what it looks like:</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://i741.photobucket.com/albums/xx54/COScollect/AmericanPirateFront.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://i741.photobucket.com/albums/xx54/COScollect/AmericanPirateBack.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>It is a 1-oz &quot;Captain William Kidd&quot; silver art bar (USSC-150).&nbsp; It was minted in 1973 by United states Silver Corporation.&nbsp; I paid $39.31 for this bar (3-25-2011 spot silver = $37.32).&nbsp; There is some toning on this bar on the corners and on the reverse side but not a big deal for me.&nbsp; It is not a rare art bar because the mintage is high.&nbsp; The mintage number for this particular bar is 5,100 according to the 2009 silver art bar price guide that was published by Archie Kidd.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>When I started collecting silver art bars in 2008, I stated that I would never pay a hefty premium for a silver art bar on ebay. Back then, there were GreatHouse and other rare silver art bars on ebay that I liked very much but at that time, I was not willing to pay the ebay BIN price and when I occasionally made an attempt to bid on one of these bars, I always got outbid on these silver art bars.&nbsp; When I started out collecting silver art bars, I did not have any Archie Kidd silver art bar price guides and I did not know very much about GreatHouse silver art bars except that I like them very much and I could not find one locally.&nbsp; When I purchased the 4th edition of the Archie Kidd silver art bar price guide, I read about the various GreatHouse silver art bars that were minted throughout the late &#039;70&#039;s and early &#039;80&#039;s and I quickly found that all of them had very low mintages.&nbsp; Some of them had mintages of less than 100.&nbsp; When I found this out, then it made sense to me as to why I could never find one locally at any of the local coin dealers (or coin shows) in my area and why they were selling for a large premium (4X to 5X spot silver) on ebay. I adjusted to that reality and I started bidding on rare silver art bars on ebay.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>There are probably a lot of people that may not like ebay for one reason or the other but one good thing that I can say about ebay is that makes it possible for me to find and to have the opportunity to bid on rare silver art bars such as GreatHouse.&nbsp; Without ebay, I would probably have never found this Popeye silver art bar locally at a local dealer or at a coin show.&nbsp; I still try to aim to pay .999 generic silver premiums for rare silver art bars such as this but it does not always work out that way.&nbsp; There is always a chance that I could get lucky enough to find a GreatHouse Productions silver art bar at a local dealer for a .999 generic silver premium but that is a very slim (if any) chance of that happening.&nbsp; I am not scared of paying the collectors premium (within reason) for a GreatHouse art bar on ebay.&nbsp; Whenever I am able (within financial limitations), then I am willing to do so again if I see another rare silver art bar on ebay that is on my silver art bar wish list that I want to add to my silver art bar collection.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>I apologize for the long post but I had a lot to say.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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