US Government silver ingots - A lot of interest and bidding in recent Heritage Auction
dcarr
Posts: 8,510 ✭✭✭✭✭
Heritage Auctions just conducted a sale of US Government ingots from:
Philadelphia Mint ;
New York Assay Office ;
San Francisco Mint ;
San Francisco Assay Office.
Bidding interest seemed strong. The lots that I was most interested in sold for more than the amounts that I had rationalized to pay. Only the biggest ones (100+ troy oz) sold remotely close to "melt" value. The typical 5-oz to 50oz bars exhibited very significant collector premiums.
Here is a link to the completed sales (this link is for the first ingot in the auction, subsequent lots have the others) :
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Comments
Wow. What a difference from even ten years ago. I bought this from a local shop probably 8-10 years ago. I kept it for a couple years but couldn't help flipping it for profit... I think I sold it for $650 and was very happy about it at the time...
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Click on this link to see my ebay listings.
That's pretty spirited bidding.
Not close to melt is an understatement! Those are strong prices
That is a neat bar. It does have some voids in the surface which interrupt the stampings. So that affects the value a little bit. And the oval is a little weak around the perimeter. But still, a bar like that probably would have sold in that recent auction for about $4,000.
I read in a couple of places a few years ago that San Francisco US MINT silver bars with the oval stamp are being counterfeited so be careful buying them.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
So isn't that the job of "Heritage Auction" to verify the authenticity of those bars?
@SilverPlatinum asked “So isn't that the job of "Heritage Auction" to verify the authenticity of those bars?”
Yes, I would certainly trust Heritage. I would guess that @PerryHall’s concern is with less well known sources.
There was some really cool bars in this sale. But I couldn’t bring myself to pay up at these levels…
Was this inscription done by the U.S. Mint or someone else?
https://coins.ha.com/itm/ingots/1955-ms-san-francisco-mint-silver-ingot-1058-ounces/a/1364-4125.s
Sold for over 31k. More than one bidder must have believed it to be mint inscribe. HA says they assume it was a mint inscription. Cool bar it sold for a lot of money.
I placed what I thought was an aggressive bid on that, but I wasn't even close to winning it.
It is somewhat curious how the engraving was done. It looks like some sort of milling/engraving machine was used.
I assume the engraving is circa 1955, but likely done outside the mint.