Hello everyone, I just got home from work to find a new toy in the mail! An Andrew Johnson president 1 oz .999 silver bullion. I know I'm a nerd, but being the patriot I am (you can take the boy out of the corps but you can't take the corps out of the boy!) I am wanting to collect the full set. So, as you will see in the photographs this bullion appears to have been through a few tough times - Do I leave it as is or is there a method I can go through to bring back some of its luster without devaluing the bullion. I will be putting it into an airtight and keeping a hold of it I just want to treat it the best I can. Also, does anyone know the number of these bullions that were minted? I can not find an answer anywhere. Thank you, David
Thecigarnut, This bar is part of the Hamilton Mint series called "American Presidents". According to my 4th edition of the silver art bar guidebook called "An Indexed Guide Book of Silver Art Bars", there are 39 bars in the Hamilton Mint "America Presidents" series. This series runs from 1974 to 1976. The guidebook also mentions that each bar of this series has a mintage number of 10,000. There is also a gold-plated version of this 1-oz .999 silver art bar and it has a mintage number of 5,000 for each bar. As for cleaning, opinions will vary on this subject. Even though it is bullion and cleaning it will not hurt the actual metal value but it might negatively affect the collector value (the value above silver metal value) on a silver art bar. It is better to err on the side of caution by just leaving it as it is. I am a fan of using airtites on certain silver art bars. I do not have airtites for every silver art bar that I own but I use airtites for a lot of my rare silver art bars because when I bought them, they were in great shape and I wanted to preserve that condition as much as possible and an airtite is the best option for that IMO. The silver bar airtites will fit a standard size silver art bar, however, it might be hard to find an airtite for the Hamilton Mint that you have because the dimensions are not that of a standard silver art bar. You might have some luck finding some airtites on ebay that will fit a Hamilton Mint silver art bar.
I wouldn't worry about hurting the bullion value unless you start scraping silver away. As for as collector value, I really doubt it is worth more than silver content.
When it comes to Hamilton Mint silver art bars that have very high mintages like 5,000 or 10,000, then they will have winning bids that are between $3 to $8 over spot silver (before fees). Most Hamilton Mint bars are not rare art bars.
I wouldn't try to clean it, but I don't advise you to put fingerprints on one either. The oils from your skin can etch into the surface, and once they have taken hold, there is no removing them. You should wear cotton gloves which can be obtained from almost any coin suppies company. If you don't want to use gloves, then you should only hold a coin, medal or bullion by the outer edge. Chris
Thank you very much for the information - I am not looking at scraping this out but I would like to gather all 39. I do agree the value is not much over silver spot so for me at least, it makes it a bit easier to financially acquire haha! I did not think of the airtight dimensions being different. I also did not think of using gloves although I will purchase a pair this weekend. Thank you again everyone, David
