Month: October 2020

Van Aken ingots are a bit of a mystery, but highly sought after for their unique look. I have not been able to find much information, but there is a Van Aken Jewelers in Ohio. I’m trying to uncover more information and will update the blog accordingly. Several Van Aken bars have been found over the years in 1 oz class and look much like the OIO 1 oz ingots. The 5’s are the true unicorns, however. I’m very fortunate to have one and not aware of any others at this time. Note the similarity again with OIO (very similar fonts and style on this 5 with those OIOs I have seen).

This bar has it all. The age is apparent.

US Silver Corp is well known for their art bars and vintage silver rounds from the early to mid 70s era, but they also did some poured vintage bars. Very collectible and most often found in 5 and 10 oz class, but did make larger poured bars in 25, 50 and 100 oz class. Here are a few from my collection.

These truly are some of my favorite 5 oz pieces. Universal Refiners ingots are extremely hard to come by. They almost never come up. There are two varieties, both of which came from Ken Conaway’s collection. Very fortunate to have these.

I’m a big fan of these and was happy to recently receive provenance that URI is indeed United Refinery, Inc. A friend had shared an assay paper with the bar and papers (see at the end of this blog post for the assay paper with name). Was really cool to find this out after so much time. These bars are from the early to mid 70s and really well done. I’ve mainly seen these in 5 oz with a few 10 oz and a 100 oz. Enjoy the pics.

Tim C., who has contributed on a few posts, was nice enough to share an example of a 5 oz with a different stamp positioning. See below.

Anyone who is familiar with the CMI
(Constitution Mint) mold will immediately recognize the similarity here. TNT is one of the only bars I have every come across in the CMI mold. Wish I knew more about the company, but it’s a scarce example.

Another unique “T” is Triple AAA. I’ve only come across 3-4 of these ever.

I’ve been digging for information and have gotten some good hits lately that I’m happy to share with our readers. The company was out of Chino, CA and they operated in the early 80’s. In 1984 Sunshine Mining out of Idaho, acquired the company. The name TENTEX is a combination of the words Texas and Tennessee, which happens to be the birthplaces of the husband and wife team who founded the company. The company primarily made silver rounds and silver bars for bullion dealers and marketing companies in the industry across the country. Here are some examples of their bars.