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Treasures of a Vermont Antique Store

I was up in Vermont/New Hampshire the weekend. I only had time to stop by 1 antique store (they're all over the place up there), but I picked the right one! The guy was very friendly and chatty, and was happy to bring out boatloads of stuff when I asked for "western americana" stuff, particularly stuff relating to mining.

Turns out that this guy had recently purchased the estate of Robert M Reininger, one of the Director of the Homestake Mining Company from 1981-1986 and also Director of the Rosario Mining Company (and probably the director of other companies I'm not aware of). I was able to pick up some really interesting pieces.

The 3 bars at the front left are samples from the Rosario and El Mochito mines in Honduras, dating from the mid 1960's. The top left bar was probably a sample pour bar from NYH (that's just my guess--there are no weight markings and on the back of the bar there are large bubble-holes). The botom right bar was most likely a presentation piece to Reininger, since it has his name engraved on the side and seems to have a special finish/gloss. I don't know what the right middle bar is, but it has no weight markings. At top right is Reiningers sterling money clip, given to him upon his retirement.

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Close-up pics of the money clip.
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These were cool. Apparantly, these were simply splashes of silver that flew out of the melting pot at a smelters shop. One of them was mounted in a frame, but I decided to remove it. He couldn't weigh the one that was in the frame though, so he just estimated. The first one (which was not in a frame) weighed 30 ounces according to an old scale he had, so he guessed that the second one weighed the same. When I got them home I weighed them both respectively. The first weighed 32 oz and the other (the one that had been in the frame) weighed 40 oz. 12 oz of silver for free!

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I also managed to pick up some natural silver specimens.

Besides the two "splashes" of silver I paid under melt for, I paid $15 an oz for everything else.

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