A Tale of Ten Twenty's

Cladiator

I stumbled into a small group of six Perth Mint 20oz silver bars recently. It puts my small collection of 20's at a total of ten. These don't come available all that often so finding a half dozen at once was an opportunity I couldn't pass up.

I really like the old logo (left facing swan) and three of this newly acquired group are of the newer style logo with the right facing swan. My guess is I'll sell off the newer bars as I find old logo bars to replace them in the collection.

All Engelhard lists the population of the newer bars at less than one hundred. They don't have any data on the population of the older style bars. In the past few years I've come across more of the old bars than the new bars, probably close to four times more. Based off that small observation I'll assume there are fewer of the newer bars than the older ones. We all know what assumptions get you though, so who really knows which is more common...

1630Boston

very nice collection

Meltdown

I don't know how you stumble on that many vintage bars of the same make... someone in your area must have had a bunch at a time when they were plentiful. I know in my area, the days of finding vintage bars in the wild are long gone, every shop and every stacker knows the premiums they can bring and getting them over the counter and affordable is next to impossible anymore.

DrBuster

Nice, love me some Perth metal. I have a newer 10 that I got at the Atlanta ANA, only one I've ever seen around here.

ricko

That is a very nice group of big silver bars. I have only some one ounce novelty bars, and lots of coins. Never tried the large bars... Might consider one. Cheers, RickO

Cladiator

@Meltdown I stumbled across them virtually, online. In talking with a fellow stacker one thing lead to another and I got connected with the half dozen bars. They were in Australia, not local to me. Took a couple weeks in shipment but they finally arrived safe and sound.

@ricko They are surprisingly not as big as one would think. I remember being shocked when I got my first one at how physically small they are. It's part of what draws me to the 20's, it's a good amount of silver but not in an annoyingly large format. I've had the old Johnson Matthey 20's and they are wider and flatter by a good amount which makes them feel bigger, bigger footprint. Here's a pic to show the size compared to the other Perth bars.

ricko

@Cladiator.... Thanks for the comparative picture. I like the 20oz. even more now. Cheers, RickO

johnny9434

Nice catch

WildIdea

I’ll have to see what direction my hallmark is facing!

asheland

Very cool!

Cladiator

@WildIdea said:
I’ll have to see what direction my hallmarks are facing!

Let us know when you do so we can add numbers to our tiny survey.

WildIdea

@Cladiator said:

@WildIdea said:
I’ll have to see what direction my hallmarks are facing!

Let us know when you do so we can add numbers to our tiny survey.

It’s left facing…

Cladiator

Nice, thanks. One more small data point possibly indicating that left facing is more common than right facing. Perhaps Perth cancelled the 20 ounce bar program shortly after the logo change. I see tons of right facing logo Kg's and 10oz's, at least when compared to the 20's.

JWP

I have a kilo bar and 3-10 oz, but no vintage.