Question about all those 1 oz silver art bars.

PerryHall

Has anyone ever heard of those 1 oz silver art bars ever not having their full weight of silver or being outright counterfeit? There seems to be many fabricators of these bars and many of them aren't labeled as to the manufacturer or the manufacturer is someone I've never heard of before.

mkman123

never heard of anything like that.

Weiss

Well, kinda. I've seen kilo sized coin-bars (walking liberty style) that were supposed to be .999, thought to be .999, and looked like they were .999. But nothing on them indicated they were .999. Sometimes the .999 is on the edge, but there was nothing on this one anywhere. Turns out it was plated.

And there are tons and tons and tons of Franklin Mint bars out there that are exceptionally well made and are head and shoulders above the designs of the majority of generic art bars. But most if not all Franklin Mint pieces are sterling. Not only is that ~7.5% less silver by weight, they tend to sell at a discount to their silver content--sometimes even below the more liquid but less pure 90% pre-65 coins.

Yesterday when I got the two JM 10 oz bars, my dealer was shooting the breeze with another customer. After I'd gotten the 10 oz bars I asked if he had any 1 oz. He said he'd had a pile of them but the guy across the counter bought the last two, at which point the customer whipped out a zip lock with two bars. He kindly offered them to me (he'd scooped me on a raw '21 peace a few months back that I'm still kicking myself about) but I could tell from 10 feetaway they were Franklin Mint pieces. I said "Thanks, but I don't buy sterling". The guy looked stunned, turned to the dealer who confirmed at least one of them was sterling. I left before seeing how it played out, I doubt the guy was too upset about it.