I have always been a compulsive collector. I started young with the usual types of obsessions - comic books, sports cards, Pez etc. I always was very avid in one or all at any given time. I also had a small wooden box full of coins from around the world, these were given to me as gifts from mostly my Grandmother and my Uncle. For some reason I wasn't as obsessed with these as I was with comic books and sports cards.
This all changed in 1986 when the first American Silver Eagle was released. Understanding right away the underlying silver value as opposed to my copper, brass and pot metal coins from around the world - I became addicted. I still kept up with my comic books and sport card collections but started a new obsession ..... silver coins ! I totally started taking all the money I could earn and buying up all the Morgan and Peace dollars I could find. Later I went full on into Franklin Halves and Mercury Dimes.
This went on for 20 years, but I was the kind of collector that just wanted one of each year. I never had multiples of any year. If I did acquire a double I would take the one that was in a the lesser condition to sell or trade for years I didn't have and always trying to find better condition specimens of the years I had. Well sometime around 2006 I pretty much had full sets of all 4 coins and in about as prime condition as I could find or afford. When I got to this point my interest kind of waned. Besides buying silver Eagles yearly I kind of became less and less obsessed.
I actually don't remember who gifted me my first Engelhard silver bar. I am guessing it might have been my Uncle .... but anyways this kind of got my silver collecting juices flowing again. I slowly became obsessed with poured silver bars. I never really liked pressed bars ... it was always the poured bars that got my money.
Now fast forward to around 2013 I started finding custom poured pieces. These weren't simple bars ..... these were shapes and figures and logos ! So for around 2 years I was buying up every custom pour that caught my attention by its design or shape. But soon my mind was imaging things that weren't available or that I couldn't find. I found myself starting to be intrigued and started reading up on pouring, watching every video I could find and talking to anybody that knew anything about the topic or had the same itch.
It must have been late 2014 or early 2015 I finally felt I understood the basics and wanted to tackle it ! I spent right around $1,000.00 dollars for a good basic starter set of everything I would need and rented a small shop area and went for it. At this time I was working full time as a contract flooring installer and would pour just for fun in any spare time I had. I started do some basic pouring ... and every so often I would do a piece I was kind of proud of and would show a friend or post it on social media. Pretty soon I started to get requests from people asking if I would make them something. It snowballed fast.... before I knew it I was working from dawn to dusk 7 days a week between flooring and pouring..... it came to the point where I became exhausted and started to physically break down health wise. I knew I had to make a decision ....walk away from a lucrative business I had been doing for 25 years to pursue taking my hobby pouring and making it my lively hood. It wasn't a hard decision, I walked away from flooring and started my pouring journey .... now it is what I do ! And here are some examples.
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