My LCS has a bag full of various art bars. I've picked up a few I thought were interesting to me but I'm not too familiar with the whole deal on them. My LCS sells them for around spot + $1 US. I see a lot of them for sale on ebay and various places for substantial mark ups over spot but I don't know if they're actually selling. Anyone have the story on these things? Should I clean out my LCS? (keep in mind I've bought a lot this year and like many of you am feeling the burn and am feeling the need to b*tch and moan about it
Spot +$1 I'd probably clean him out depending on the actual bars, just for the collection. As for eBay, the prices are always over inflated to keep up with the fees
When you say "...a bag full..." or art bars, is that a bag of 30-60 bars or a bag of 300-600 bars? If I had a shot at silver art bars for $1 over the present (a 2-year, 5-month low) silver spot, I'd grab everything I could in the blink of an eye. I'd hit a credit card and blow the next 4 weeks worth of play money on an opportunity like that. Don't be surprised if you go back to the bag 24 or 48 hours later and find it empty or real close to it.
Art bars are usually the lowest premium 999 fine silver bars out there. ebay does not equal real world.
What kind of art bars did u see? Royal canadian mint bars? credit suisse bars? Vintage bars? Swiss bank corporation bars? I think there's a market for old bars from reputable refineries.
I think it is a good bargain to have a physical 999 silver at spot + $1. Obviously not all of the design will appeal to everyone. Depending what is your stacking strategy. But if i can get regular supply of this at that low premium...will be all over it like a boss. And ship them off to eBay.
I'd guess they've got around 100 or so art bar types and a bunch of 1 oz regular bars. I've been going to this LCS for 4 months now and they've been there the whole time. They're not on display, behind the counter. I think I'm the only one that's picked through it at all in the whole time I've been going there.
I thought art bars were a term for those bars from the 70s that had pictures, ads, historical plague info, etc like the ones on the right here: They have a bunch of the "normal" bars like sunshine mint, heraceus, etc. but spot + $1 is more than I like to pay for regular bullion. I'll stick to bigger bars and lower premiums
I actually don't think spot + $1 US is a good bargain (well, for 1 oz bars yea) but they do spot + $0.70 US for 100 oz JM and engle bars and spot + $0.60 for "generic" bars (i've picked up Amark and royal canadian 100oz bars from them as "generic"). Kinda sad because "generic" bars used to be spot + $0.50 but since they kept selling out of them they raised it $0.10. Their ASE pricing is spot + $2.95US for 100 or more too which is lower than anyone I've seen online except tulving but they have a 500 coin minimum. It's strange how they're selling so much as silver's price is crashing. Maybe this most recent crash will change how quickly they're selling. But either way it just seems weird that prices keep falling so quickly when everything I've seen for physical demand has been skyrocketing.
