Chris Duane's newest youtube vid reveals that the series is over. After making quite a splash a while back, it seems that the independent silver rounds movement is over. Mulligan Mint seems to be over, Second Arrow Silver moved to proof-like rounds (I think there's no way they'll survive offering only overpriced proof rounds), and now SBSS. They all claim new plans and visions of comebacks, but if you ask me, they all just fell with the falling price of silver and the falling interest that produces. Also, a five dollar premium on $35 ounce silver seems fine, but that same premium on $20 silver makes people think twice about making a purchase. Back to ASE's and Maples, I guess. And Zombucks.
The rounds come and go with the market. They'll be back when the price of silver begins to climb again.
Because of litigation, Chris Duane needs to give up the name. He's going to start again with a different obverse and call it Silver Shield. M2 probably has a slim chance of being deemed viable and emerging from bankruptcy, and the rest are just dragging along on coat tails, trying to kill the beast.
The 80's took out a bunch of rounds manufacturers as well. I agree with Dunk, its a cyclical industry. Without a country name and denomination on it, making it officially a coin, there is usually not a lot of demand for rounds. To me, things like Maple Leaves etc are the new "rounds". With the spate of counterfeiting, I simply do not trust most things purporting to be silver nowadays. Life is too short to have to carry around a rare earth magnet.
Well...PeacePeople was right. Duane is just continuing the series under "Siver Shield". Big difference! I'm thinking he's grasping for straws at this point. Last few designs haven't sold well (although some were really cool), so I think he's just putting a marketing spin on the retirement of the series to drum up some interest. I don't think it'll matter - what the guy needs to do is stop talking so much about himself. Relax guy, you're not that interesting or important.
I'm rather confused about the SBSS collapse, I became an affiliate and procured over $1000 in sales for them, when no funds were showing in my account, I wrote several messages and emails asking why, no response. At some point when logging into my bookmarked account, I was redirected to a different page, Mulligan Mint. As to their failure/collapse, I imagine buying their raw material when Silver was $30+ and then the drop to $20 had some influence...
Well, he's back at it. Duane just released a few more coins under a new "Silver Shield" imprint. One is an anti-bitcoin piece, another depicting The crucifixion, and one with the old and new silver shield logos. Honestly, not even worth posting pics of them - some of the worst designs I've seen. A far cry from the inspired Freedom Girl round he created. Again, the guy is done.
i supported chris from the get go. never bought any of his flashy silver, but i read all of the case files against mulligan mint, and concluded rob gray is a criminal. i also concluded this is duanes business, he can preach all he wants about enlightening people, but lets be honest, he isnt doing it charitably, he is doing it for money. but the jesus coin? really? doesnt anyone feel like that is just blasphemously ridiculous? ie, judas selling christ out for silver??? im not even christian and i find that massively ignorantly offensive.
