Good historical write up of rise and fall of Franklin Mint

bidask

https://coinweek.com/education/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-franklin-mint/

bsshog40

This Franklin Mint?

https://franklinmint.com/dept/gold-and-silver?cp=67914_83406_83426

JBK

I have not read the article yet, but I will.

Back in the 1970s and early 80s when they were making proof sets for various foreign governments, I felt that the quality of their proof coins was second to none, and better than most.

golden

My dad bought my sister and I each 10 shares of GNC ( later changed to Franklin Mint ) in 1965 at $6.075 a a share. We held through many splits and eventually got several thousand dollars each. Not bad for a $60.75 investment.

291fifth

@JBK said:
I have not read the article yet, but I will.

Back in the 1970s and early 80s when they were making proof sets for various foreign governments, I felt that the quality of their proof coins was second to none, and better than most.

The production quality of Franklin Mint items was very high. In terms of their silver medals, if you were selling at melt it was always advisable to have them weighed as they were usually slightly overweight. This was due to the Franklin Mint's guarantee regarding content.

BillDugan1959

The hobby/industry situation regarding silver weight and fineness was different in the early part of the Franklin Mint's production, and Franklin Mint did not usually express their weights in troy ounces in their advertisements. Nor did they use grams. iIRC, The Franklin Mint liked to express silver weights in "grains". This can make it slightly cloudy about the actual silver weights of their products, without actually doing the weighing. Maybe I once knew the conversions, automatically, but I have forgotten. A lot of casual hobbyists did not know much about the Troy ounce system until around 1980. Heck, I still know people who use "pennyweights"!

The corporation using this name today seemingly bought the rights to the name and some of the logos. I do not think it is the same corporate entity as in earlier years. The full corporate history could be more complicated than the linked article suggested. I could also be mistaken, if anybody wants to chime in on this/these point(s).

Weiss

The wikipedia article on the Franklin mint discusses its ownership changes over time:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Franklin_Mint

CaptHenway

@bidask said:
https://coinweek.com/education/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-franklin-mint/

Excellent history!

Timbuk3

Interesting information, thanks !!!

ricko

Franklin Mint has been around for over fifty years and produced collectibles in many fields. Initially, as I recall, they were certainly of high quality and good reputation. Not sure when that started to change.... Cheers, RickO