Afternoon everyone….
Let’s talk about spot prices and the premiums that exist on purchasing precious metals. I will also discuss what and if you can recuperate any of that premium back when you go to sell your precious metals.
Today the item that I chosen to use in this particular post will be vintage silver ten ounce bars. The reason why I chose them to start with is because they are in a category all by themselves when it comes to purchasing bullion.
Vintage hand poured and even many pressed or casted bars carry quite a premium over spot.
Why?
Because of their scarcity, extremely low mintage, and their collectibility.
There are some vintage hand poured bars that sell for thousands of dollars for just a handful of Troy ounces of silver. Some bars have mintages under 25 bars. And the known existence is unknown because some could have been melted down during the silver price spikes.
We are not going to concentrate on those though. Those style bars are for extremely high end silver ingot collectors. They are treated just like numismatic coins.
I am going to discuss bars that are still harder to find, but are absolutely possible for you to obtain still.
But are the premiums worth it?
That all depends on what you consider worth it…
Let me explain….
I personally haven’t bought any vintage bars in a few years now. Not because I wouldn’t, just because my funds were limited and I wasn’t purchasing much at all.
The bars that I am about to share were purchased between late 2018 through the beginning of 2020. The average price for silver was between $17-$18 per ounce. So remember that when I discuss what I paid for what I am showing.
The first bar up is a ten ounce hand poured Academy silver bar. Academy was a small refinery in Arizona who primarily refined and sold to large companies. Late in their existence they produced bars for a handful of years that were sold locally or to the public. They were bought out by the Scottsdale Mint at some point which there really in not much information about.
I bought this bar for $228, which at the time was a premium of over $6 an ounce. These bars today sell for over $300. Which means that my premium would be recouped if I was willing to sell it, which I’m not.
Here is the bar…
Next up is a pair of vintage Johnson Matthey ten ounce bars. These bars are very sought after because of Johnson Matthey’s collector popularity. I paid $250 each for these bars. At the time of purchase silver was at just under $18 an ounce. That is a $7 premium over spot price.
That might sound like a lot, but it was actually the going rate at the time.
These bars sell very quickly for anywhere from $450-$600. Yes, you read that correctly. Don’t believe me check out the sold listing on EBay or Instagram. There are a few variations of these bars, some have mintages of less then 500.
So if I was going to sell them today. Which once again I am not. Selling them would produce a profit of roughly double what I paid for them two years ago.
Here are the bars…
My final bar of the day is from a company named Jackson Precious Metals. They were a very big refinery in Ohio back in the 70’s and 80’s. They actually had three separate facilities that refined silver and one that refined other metals. They were sold to a company named OPM (Ohio Precious Metals) in the 90’s.
These are a must have bar for any vintage bar collector. Because of their history and popularity they are highly collectible.
I purchased this bar for $220, when silver was just above $17 an ounce. That’s roughly a $5 premium over spot.
These bars sell fairly quickly in the $320-$400 range depending on condition and visual appearance of the stamping.
If I were to sell this bar, which for the final time I am not. The bar would give me a profit of over $100 easily in its condition.
Here is the bar….
I hope you enjoyed this post and learned a little from it. Also it’s good knowledge in case you happen to stumble upon one of these for a good price over spot.