Month: April 2020

I recently acquired a new piece from this old refiner that has a special place in my collection. The 22.54 oz is my favorite large bar in my collection. The hallmark is spectacular as is the shape, size, etc. Great in hand. ASR pieces are more commonly found in 10 oz class, but even 10’s don’t come up often. The 1 oz pieces carry the highest premium. I’m still looking for that 1 oz piece!

Here are a few additional examples of ASR ingots in different sizes and varieties. Thank you to Brian R. for sharing these.

Just a few goodies to share from the 5 oz class. Note the different shapes and sizes, types of molds, etc. All part of the fun of collecting. 5’s are primarily where I have focused my attention of late, but I have a fair amount of larger vintage pieces. We always say we are going to focus on one genre, but collecting silver ingots is highly addicting and it’s hard not to buy larger bars when you come across any vintage pieces. They are all drying up and getting harder and harder to find. Collector to collector transactions are where I’m finding the vast majority of my new additions. I can say this is true for at least the last 1-2 years.

Update to the “A” box is a nice family photo of 5 oz class American Credit Bar ingots.

There were many to choose from, but these 10’s pictured are far from common and have really cool hallmarks. Hope you enjoy them.

Here’s a recent update to the 10 oz class “A” box that come from fellow collector Prashant K’s collection. American Coins is not one you often see. This bar has some killer pour lines on the reverse. Enjoy the pics.

Nice old chunky ingot. I’ve only come across a few of these.

You can’t talk about the “A” refiners without mentioning Alexander Westerfeld, which is also sometimes errantly referred to as Alexander Westerfall. The former president’s last name was Westerfeld, but somewhere along the line, the name was confused. This is a common problem that collectors run into. There is so much misinformation out there that we collectors are constantly updating our notes on refiners. AW was out of Mojave, CA an area known for refining back in the 70s. Here are a few examples for reference:

The 22 oz is absolutely one of my favorite bars. The swirl lines and overall condition are fantastic. Many of the surviving bars in this weight class tend to be beaten up. Not unexpected due to age and journey of the bar.

Continuing with the “A” box is a pair of rare sub 5 oz class Agnons with sequential serial numbers. This is the only known pair of sequential and the 4.2 is the lowest known weight on an Agnon ingot. Prized bars in my collection.

There are so many old refiners that it’s really hard to keep track of. The way I do it is to store my ingots alphabetically and what better place to start than the good old letter “A.”

I’m going to kick this off with a few pics of some of my favorite old refiners in the “A” bucket.

I found the love of collecting old poured silver ingots about 5 years ago. Collecting vintage bullion just comes down to what you love, what catches your eye. It becomes an obsession from there.

Many of the bars I collect, were poured in the late 60’s and 70’s, through mid 80’s. There was an abundance of companies pouring silver at this time, however it came to a roaring halt on Silver Thursday, which was an event that occurred in the United States on March 27, 1980 following the attempt by brothers Nelson Bunker Hunt, William Herbert Hunt and Lamar Hunt to corner the silver market. Silver had reached a high of $50/oz at that time. What happened to all those beautiful old poured bars you might ask? Most of the melting took place in 1979 and 1980, when silver bullion soared to an all-time high of $50 an ounce. At that point, the silver bars were worth far more as metal than as money or collectibles. Hence the Great Melt occurred and created a whole new market for collecting.

Vintage can mean different things to different people, but to me, it’s any bar produced from mid 1980s and earlier. Again, there is no hard or fast rule here, just a guideline on what’s considered vintage.

Collecting can encompass everything from 1 oz to 100 gram pieces, which I refer to as “silver smalls” to 5, 10, 20+, 50+ and 100+ oz pieces.

With this blog site, my goal is to showcase and chronicle my collection alphabetically, putting pieces in “alphabetized boxes.”

Hope you enjoy the journey as much as I do.