Are the above bars worth buying? Its a set with 50x2oz ingot in it by Wellington mint.Comes in box with coa.Thank you
If you can buy them for well under spot then yes any type of silver is worth buying like that. Over the years I have purchased all kinds of small .925 silver ingots collections featuring cars, postage stamps, and other varied themes some for up to 50% under spot. But it can be more difficult to sell than the .999 and the dealers will give you a lot less for that kind of stuff than the pure bullion if you need to raise some cash in a hurry.
Depending on the theme, design and price.. But I like that sort of thing.. I've never heard of the Wellington mint, sounds interesting. I wouldn't be expecting to get it well under spot though...
I've just scored a 60 medallion set of 39 gram .925 silver fully gilded for just a few hundred below the spot price of the total silver content in it! I'll assume the 24 carat gold gilding adds almost nothing to their value. Are you telling me I've paid too much for it even so? 1972 Medallic History Of Australia. Some really nice ones amongst them even so.
No, I am not telling you that you paid too much @PhilDePunter. At the present time all silver products are selling like hot cakes as everybody knows, so to score any type of silver at under spot price is not so easy anymore, so well done. What I was alluding to was that in times past this type of silver was the most undesirable and difficult to sell for a profit, and if silver prices were to drop significantly, then the same might be true again. In years gone by I had trouble finding a dealer who would give me more than 80% spot for this type of stuff,and even on eBay it was selling for spot and under, so when you factored in the fees it was similar to the dealers buying prices. And you are right gold plating was only used to attract more customers to these overpriced 'limited edition' collections, it does not add anything to their value today.
On Thanks so much for giving me a greater understanding of the situation with this sort of silver. I did a bit of research on these coins before I went in and was willing to bid them up to spot. "Overpriced" as you say is the operative word. Back in 1972 the spot price of silver was in the range of US$1.50 to $2.00 an ounce, https://sdbullion.com/silver-prices-1972 . They were slugging these medallions for $20 sterling and $25 gilded sterling each. That's some magnitude of premium I could hardly believe. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-75206981...13&partId=nla.obj-752093684#page/n29/mode/1up
The Franklin Mint in the USA was one of the worst offenders with this type of product at highly inflated prices. They produced countless 'Limited Edition Issues' featuring just about every thematic subject you could think of, particularly during the 1970s. I purchased a 24 ingot set of their ' Worlds First Historic Stamps ' some months ago for about $200, interestingly while 23 of the ingots are marked as .925 silver one other ingot is marked as .999 silver ( a buyers enticement bonus perhaps ) I recon I could flip the set now for double the money, so no doubt about it, if this type of product is purchased at the right time and right price, good profits can be achieved upon resale. Happy collecting
