Month: January 2023

Chovanak Part 2

I received a nice note from fellow collector Kerry F. after the New Year offering to share some beautiful pieces from his collection with the community. This is one of the things I really love about collecting, the incredible community out there that shares the love and passion for collecting old poured silver bars. I’m really excited to share some of these images, but first a brief historical recap of Chovanak. Their silver ingots are thought to have gone back to the early 1900s until they stopped producing them in the early 1980s. The story goes that the early Chovanaks found silver in Helena, Montana and made it their permanent home for 5 generations. It’s been told that they had 2 mines in the city of Helena back in the day. They were known for their cutting edge mining acumen at the time and were among the earliest to produce and stamp 999 fine ingots. Chovanak is know for their picture frame style and have an iconic look to them. Enjoy some of these images below from Kerry’s collection. Note that to find sub 5 oz and or larger than 5 oz weight class Chovanak pieces is incredibly rare. Kerry has the most amazing collection of these that I have personally encountered.

Incredible 2 oz piece. This is an absolute unicorn.
Obverse of the 2 oz. Love the character here.
Here is the obverse of an incredible 3.8 oz piece.
Insane reverse on this piece. Note the hooked “Z.” These are thought to be much older in age. Also, neat to see the additional stamping here on the back left side of the bar.
Had to add another image of the 3.8 with a better view of the stampings here.
Here is the obverse of a 4 oz Chovanak, incredibly rare and unique.
Another unicorn here, thought to be a very early dated ingot with the “OZ” designation.
Beautiful 5 oz ingot in pristine condition.
Again, note the font used is an earlier style. To see more specific side by side images of the older font versus new font, check out the following link from another great site on old pours: https://silveringotinfo.com/doku.php?id=chovanak:chovanak
It’s absolutely insane to see an 8 oz odd weight Chovanak in this style. This is the reverse. The “TR O” weight designation is known to be later dated, but I have never seen one in this size/weight. Amazing!
Obverse, blank picture frame. So cool!

Hope you all enjoyed this post and thanks again to Kerry. I appreciate all the viewers and feedback is welcome. Happy New Year all.