SB has announced they will merge with A-Mark. My guess is that A-Mark is acquiring SB from Spectrum Group International, the current owner. A-Mark is a publicly traded corporation that is big in precious metals. A-Mark owns JM Bullion and Silver Towne Mint among other companies. Cal
A little investigation revealed that A-Mark is essentially a subsidiary of Spectrum Group even though A-Mark is listed on NASDAQ under its own name (symbol AMRK). I assume Spectrum owns a controlling number of A-Mark shares. So, the “merging” of Stack’s Bowers with A-Mark may be little more than a reshuffling of Spectrum companies. Cal
Bought from Bowers and Ruddy in the 70’s and got a free 2$ broken bank note from Nebraska. That note started me down another rabbit hole
A little numismatic financial history: Dave Bowers as a young man started a dealership on his own. He was then joined by James Ruddy to form Bowers and Ruddy. Ruddy eventually bowed out and was replaced by Ray Merena to form Bowers and Merena. B&M sold itself to Collectors Universe, owner of PCGS. Collectors Universe sold B&M to Spectrum Group which merged it with Stack’s, which it also owned, to form Stack’s Bowers. Now, Spectrum will merge SB with A-Mark, but apparently SB will retain its name as is. Strangely, when Spectrum bought B&M, CU kept the copyrights to Dave’s newsletters, B&R catalogs and B&M catalogs. Don’t know if the rights were omitted from the contract because of an oversight on Spectrum’s part, or maybe Spectrum was cognizant of the copyrights but didn’t want to pay extra for them. Cal