silver art bar guide book

chumley

I was looking for a used/new guide book for silver ingots,not a typical male as I will sometimes ask for directions.Are these books made from silver?....cheapest used copy found was $300 and new ones were $500...what makes them so expensive?

Meltdown

<< <i>I was looking for a used/new guide book for silver ingots,not a typical male as I will sometimes ask for directions.Are these books made from silver?....cheapest used copy found was $300 and new ones were $500...what makes them so expensive? >>



Wow, the price has risen a bit since I purchased mine a couple years ago. My opinion is that they're not all that helpful when it comes to mintages and their stated values are often over-inflated. A lot of times, mintage says "unknown". I photocopied my book and sold it to another member here on the boards. I believe he did the same thing and re-sold it.

dontippet

Are you talking about this book? It is only $300 brand new.

Weiss

1970SilverArt

There are other silver art bar price guide that are out there. The one that is $300 is the 5th edition Archie Kidd silver art bar price guide. That price is not very surprising to me because the 5th edition is the hardest to find and when you find one, it will cost anywhere between $150 to $300 on ebay (or Amazon). I currently have the 4th edition Archie Kidd price guide and I use it only as a reference to identify certain '70's silver art bars that I have. The 4th edition price guide was published in 1986. At the time, I paid $58 for a 4th edition Archie Kidd silver art bar price on ebay. At last check, I have seen the 4th edition Archie Kidd silver art bar price guide sell for a BIN of about $80 on ebay.

There is also a 6th edition Archie Kidd silver art bar price guide but this price guide has only the modern minted silver art bars in it. This 6th edition also has '70's and 80's silver art bars that were left out in the 5th edition price guide. The 6th edition Archie Kidd silver art bar price guide is a supplement to the 5th edition Archie Kidd price guide. The 6th edition was published in 2008 and I paid about $50 for it on ebay.

Both the 5th edition and the 6th edition Archie Kidd guidebooks have silver art bar illustrations in them.

There is a recent silver art bar guidebook that came out in 2009 that was published by Archie Kidd with help from the International Association of Silver Art Collectors (IASAC). I paid about $50 for this price guide. This is what the 2009 silver art bar guidebook looks like:



This 2009 silver art bar guide book has the most updated rarity values and mintages of the silver art bars, however, there are no illustrations of any silver art bars in this guidebook.


Here is what the 6th edition Archie Kidd silver art bar guidebook looks like:





Here is what the 4th edition Archie Kidd silver art bar guidebook looks like:

cladking

Wow! Outof allthose bars pictured onthe cover Ithink I have only one. The cupid.

I suppose they are mostly pretty scarce.

wpr101

wtf, why is the book so expensive... and how come the information isn't available on the internet somewhere?

MrSpud

Do you think it would be safe to download a silver bar guide from here? Silver Bar Download Link I clicked the download button and it wanted me to register so I got scared and left without downloading it. It says the download is free. Do you think this is legit?

I also found a good on-line store with lots of pictures of the old art bars here Link to art bar store.

1970SilverArt

<< <i>Do you think it would be safe to download a silver bar guide from here? Silver Bar Download Link I clicked the download button and it wanted me to register so I got scared and left without downloading it. It says the download is free. Do you think this is legit?

I also found a good on-line store with lots of pictures of the old art bars here Link to art bar store. >>



Unfortunately, I am not able to help you here because I do not know anything about the first silver art bar download link you posted. When in doubt, do not download from the site. You did the right thing in not downloading from there. The second silver art bar link that you posted I am familiar with. It is River City Coins and Jewelry. That website is on my bookmarks list. I have never bought anything from River City Coins and Jewelry because the silver art bars that they sell on their website are overpriced in my opinion but before I started buying and reading the silver art bar price guides, this website (and other silver art bar websites) have helped me identify certain '70's silver art bars.

1970SilverArt

<< <i>wtf, why is the book so expensive... and how come the information isn't available on the internet somewhere? >>



The 5th edition Archie Kidd silver art bar price guide is expensive because there were not very many of these silver art bar price guides that were published and a lot of people were (and probably still are) looking for it. These 5th edition Archie Kidd silver art bar guidebooks are very hard to find. When there is a 5th edition price guide that shows up on the internet, it is usually on ebay where people are going into bidding wars to obtain this book. Sometimes, I have seen a 5th edition show up on Amazon.com.

As I mentioned earlier, I do not have the 5th edition guidebook because I am not willing to spend $150 to $300 for this price guide. The 3 silver art bar guidebooks that I currently have and whatever information is one the internet is usually enough for me to gain knowledge on silver art bars. However, I also want to say that I am still learning about what I collect because there were a lot of silver art bars that were minted in the 1970's.

There is some information available on the internet regarding silver art bars. You will have to google silver art bars (or something similar) to seek out the information. Mr Spud posted a link that is very helpful with identifying silver art bars.

Here is a couple of silver art bar links that I think that are useful to people who do not have any silver art bar price guides:

http://collectex.com/store/All_Bars_And_Rounds.html

http://koinpro.tripod.com/ExonumiaList.htm

1970SilverArt

For people who are interested in collecting the 1-oz Coca-Cola silver art bars, there is also a Coca-Cola guide book that is very useful and it has helped me. The title of this guidebook is called "Coca-Cola Bottler's 75th Anniversary Ingot and Round Guide Book 1975 to 1988". This guide book was written by Thomas A. Mock and the second edition of this guide book was published in January 2009. I have the second edition of this Coca-Cola guide book and it has been very helpful to me.

Here is what it looks like:



A person can usually find these on ebay but you have to be patient because you will not see one on a regular basis on ebay. I bought mine on ebay and I paid about $63 (including shipping) for this Coca-Cola guide book.