Collection Highlights - First design in the Provident Prospector Series
This is probably the last series of silver rounds that I started to collect but then quickly quit. I was initially excited when these prospector rounds came out as I was in a full silver Vine mania, ordering way too much, or otherwise known as just the right amount for those who are sick with the stackitus.
Wendy's first came out I believe they had a very low premium of somewhere between 49 cents, 69 cents or 99 cents over spot. Clearly those would be good old days where the physical premium on Silver was very low and you could buy much more for much less. The designs were solid and the idea was great but unfortunately I believe that very quickly they started to raise the premiums as they released more rounds. By the time that I bought the gunslinger and the pony Express round I was pretty burned out from buying higher premium silver just to complete the collection and I gave up.
It reminded me of so many other series of coins that I was initially excited to buy, and then get discouraged and disgruntled by the increasing premiums for those of us who want to complete the collection. I don't know why they do this but it seems to be a fairly common practice. The same thing happened with those sweet 2 oz privateer rounds.
Obverse
The adverse has a great picture of an old-time prospector and his donkey a real. Nothing but some hand tools and a pan needed for them to go out and seek their fortunes in rough backcountry. The true independent spirit was all required to go out and find your fortune. I liked the design, thought it had a really nice blend of a full coin detail along with a pretty simple message and it goes along with the idea similar to the old coins that I like. This going to celebrating the idea of celebrating the independence of prospectors much like the older coins that celebrated the idea of Liberty on our coins.
Reverse
The reverse shows a really nice picture of an Old West Town and what things might have looked like. I think it shows some pretty solid detail considering it's only a 1 oz coin. This one has started to get some of that high humidity tarnish/ patina on it. Unfortunately they got a little humid this summer and it's stored in a treasure chest so it's bound to happen over time.
I think this is a pretty solid reverse of the coin that they will have on the entire series. It just reminds you of what the country used to be like, well they will continue to change the front of the coin to depict different people and lifestyles that were chosen in the prospect of days I have a few more I'll see if I can dig out to continue the series and see how many of them I got. I think there were six made overall and I think I might have half of them.
