Unless "extraordinary" this will be my last photo of any Silver Bars...

Greetings Collectors,

I had a few minutes as several $2.50 Liberty Gold coins I am currently watching on eBay are a little while from ending so I just wanted to share a photo of the "centerpiece" of my silver bar collection. I made mention of this bar in a post of a few days ago but with it pictured with all the others, it could not be seen very good. This very heavy bar is 4-inches long and 1 1/2 wide X 1 1/2 inches thick. (just a little larger than a piece of 2X4 lumber) As you can see it weighs 40.2 troy ounces. The silver in this bar was mined in Montana during the early 1900's cica 1912 I was told. Anyway this is by far my favorite and it's worth, far exceeds that of a 100 troy ounce bar of any other refiner except a few from around this same time frame.

Getting back to coins, as I said I am watching several $2.50 gold coins of the mid-1800's. Most of these small gold pieces have extremely "low mintages" and very low "surviving populations". I know there are better deals to be had buying $5 and $10 gold coins from the same time-frame (a common $10 costs about twice as much but has 4X the gold) but there is just something about these small ones that I can really appreciate. While $2.50 was a goodly amount of money in the 1800's and even well into the 1900's, these little coins were the major "workhorses" of commerce during these times, along with the $5. I just bought my 7th coin of this series and am going to try and get as many toward finishing a complete "date set" through 1907 that I can. I realize I have a huge task ahead of me and more than likely will encounter more than a few "stoppers" along the way. I am going to try and keep the set in lower mint state but wanting to stay with 61-62 on most as they are still "somewhat" affordable. I have a couple in "mid-high AU" that I will leave alone and not upgrade unless a deal that can't be passed up comes along. I don't see any Charlotte, Dolonenga, or CC's on the horizon due to the costs involved with those pieces. Actually there are alot of P & S mint coins in the $2.50 series that have as low and lower mintages as those "branch mint" coins. I would like to think maybe one of each of these branch mints are "in the cards", or budget if you will, but the "jury is still out" on that idea. Since my love for silver bars has waned somewhat, I could use the proceeds from the sale of several of those to finance future $2.50 gold Liberty purchases.

But I am still somewhat undecided on that idea. At present I have a "burnished Unc." 4-coin 2008-W gold set that just entered "quality control" at NGC. This "one oz. 1/2 oz. 1/4 oz. & 1/10th oz. will all be going up for sale with the proceeds used for pre-1908 gold purchases. These 4 coins along with three type-3 $20 and a single 1903 $2.50 Liberty example should be on their way back to me sometime next week. A couple of these $20's & the 1903 $2.50 are "duplicate" coins but regardless it will still be next to impossible for me to sell any of this "old gold", no matter what the reason. (Just wondering if the rest of you have as hard a time selling a coin or coins as I do?) I have had one heck of a time selling coins on eBay and have discontinued auctions altogether. What coins I do have up for sale are in a "buy it now" or "make a best offer" format. Still this does not make it much easier, but I can at least "hold out" for a price I feel is worthy enough to have that paticular coin move from my collection to then sit in someone elses.

I saw today that gold pushed through $1150 and silver is around $18.20 which is a pretty nice re-bound from the lows. I firmly beleive that 2010 will be another good year for the three top precious metals. The only reason the dollar has kept any of its worth of late is because all the other major currencys of the world are themselves "in the toilet". GM has paid back their loan to the govt. in full with interest, 5 years early which has meant good things for the platinum market as cars are being built and sold in higher numbers. But the main thing for all of us who collect precious metal coins, is that the ones we are wanting are going up in cost but on the flip side of the coin, the ones we own are fast going up in value as well. It looks as though with almost 1/3 of 2010 behind us, our collections are continuing to increase dramaticly in value and I think they will continue to do so for several years to come.

Even with this "double edged" sword making the coins we want to add to our holdings more expensive to aquire, I don't mind taking this "good" with the "bad". If you have been putting off buying that certain "key" in any particular set, you may not want to wait much longer because I feel that all of these will only become more and more expensive to obtain. Good luck to all of you in your aquisitions and as always "Happy Collecting"!

WKF