Month: December 2020

Most of you that follow my collection know that I have a soft spot for Omega pieces. Again, if you missed the first blog post, you can find it in the archives or by doing a keyword search. This was an old refiner out of Las Vegas in early to mid 70s. These ingots were once very accessible in the market, but today seem to be found mainly in 10 oz second generation, although a small hoard of 3 oz second gen pieces was recently found. Even so, premiums are high on these smalls, particularly gen 1 and pieces with oddities like double stamps or small fonts, etc. Enjoy these pics.

Here are a few more 1 oz examples shared by Jon M., who is becoming a regular contributor now. Thanks again.

And some two oz pieces for your viewing below:

A nice mix of various 3 oz varieties below:

Although, PPM is considered common vintage on their second gen 5 and 10 oz pieces, the 1 oz pieces are no longer that common. As silver smalls has exploded in the collectible community, poured 1 oz pieces are heavily sought after. PPM had two versions of the 1 oz pours, a type 1 and 2. The type 1 is much more common, but the type 2 is a trapezoidal shape that appears larger at first glance, but weight is also 1 oz. These are rare an in my estimation, you will find 8-10 regular pours before seeing a trapezoid PPM.

It took me years to accumulate this many examples.

Like the Green Valley post I did earlier today, Midas Metals are also thought to be commemorative pieces from the silver rich area of Elko County, Nevada. The Midas property was acquired by Hecla Mining in 2018. Here is a link for reference. https://www.hecla-mining.com/midas/

These have become harder to come by and prices continue to rise on them when they come up for auction.

As I go through the silver smalls genre, one that comes up frequently with high collectibility is Green Valley 1 oz ingots. These are really interesting pieces believed by many to be from Green Valley, AZ, which is home to a few very well known mines, the Sierrita Mine owned by Freeport-McMoRan and the Mission Mine owned by ASARCO. These are characterized by an “Atom” like hallmark and a unique reverse with a narrow rectangular cavity on the back. They are very well done and command healthy premiums. There are two varieties of this bar. See pics below for differences.

Here is a more scarce variety that we will refer to as type 2 that has two horizontal lines on the obverse to the left and right of the atom hallmark. Big thank you to Tim C. for sharing these images.

When it comes to Australian vintage bullion, there are the Big 3, Perth, Harringtons, and ABC. Hard for me to like one over the other, as they are all so beautiful. ABC has been around since 1972 and still in business today out of Melbourne, Victoria Australia. They are high premium ingots, but not to the level of Perth and Harringtons ingots. Regardless, these are absolute gems if you can find them. It’s taken me quite some time to assemble the following collection, which are all from my personal collection

Beautiful toning forming on reverse of the 100 gram ingots.

Here is a new update to the ABC Blog. A fellow collector in Australia, Bradley J. recently contacted me through the blog with a very rare and unique ABC 52.2 gram ingot. This is a stunning piece. Enjoy the pics and thank you Bradley!

Hope you enjoyed this blog entry. Comments are welcome. Would love to hear from like minded collectors.

I’m finally getting around to writing about my favorite genre of vintage silver bars, which are what I refer to as “Silver Smalls.” My definition may differ from others, but I consider anything 100 gram and smaller as a “Small.” I can’t wait to share some of the many 1-3+ troy oz pieces in my collections, but wanted to kick it off with one of my very favorites and among the most rare pieces in my collection. Perth made these pieces circa late 70s-early 80s era from what I gather. They came in serialized and non serialized. There are theories that the non serial variety were a test run, because they are far less often found than serialized. I have 30 pieces and of the 30, 4 are non serial. That pretty much sums it up. Both carry ridiculous premiums, but if you can put together sequential sets, it goes to even a higher level. I have 5 different sequential sets pictured below. Enjoy.

Note the estimated mintage of the serialized variety is <500 and estimated non serial <500. I personally believe the non serial is far lower, but regardless, many of these 1 oz Perths have disappeared for good. Aside of my collections, I’m aware of cumulatively maybe a few dozen at most from my knowledge of various collectors in the community who have shared pictures of their Perth 1 oz ingots. Hope you enjoyed this post. If you are a collector of these, please do follow the blog and or drop a note/email. Would love to hear from you.