I've been advised that Materion (manufacturer of the 10oz stacker bars, such as Silver Stackers and Scottsdale) is discontinuing all silver investment bar investment products. This was an out-of-the-blue announcement that we received last week. Materion acquired Academy in early 2010, the original manufacturer of the stacker bar line. Academy was more of an industrial company than a bullion company, and the investment bar products were only one of many product lines offered by the company, which catered to the solar, electrical, chemical and medical industries. It would appear that an internal line of business review at Materion has resulted in the discontinuation of investment bullion as a product offering. Materion have stated that they may re-open these product lines in future, but no dates have been given. In the meantime - the Silver Stackers 10oz stacker bar just became a limited mintage! :/ Click here to RSVP
It's not just the stacker bars - if they've got Academy - then their lovely poured 10ozers will be gone soon too... hoping they've still got some on Bullion Bourse!
Sounds like gold stackers and some of the dealers on here need to get together and do the numbers on wether it is viable and possible to purchase the equipment that produced the stackers bars.
Seems like a professional business http://materion.com/About.aspx Interesting, justs backs up what I said in my interview with Kerry Lutz about coin shortages - it is not profitable enough.
Also not surprising as I bought my last SS 10oz cheaper than a Perth Mint cast 10oz.Could not fathom much profit for anyone as costs to machine (even in a CNC mill) ,plus recover the swarfe, import the machined bar to Aust then sell at a margin .( must admit my dealer did drop the fact that they made very very little on these things.oh well it happens
I don't usually buy bars, but I've always heard that hand poured bars are the way to go, and the more scarce or rare they are, the higher the collectability, and consequently the premium... Do you guys think that since the 10 oz Materion hand poured bars were only manufactured for one year then discontinued, that they will command a hefty premium in the future, liks as with J&M and Engelhard, or is Scottsdale (and Materion) way too generic to ever really be a collectable? Any ideas... (I just started stacking silver about a month ago, and only coins, so bars are a complete mystery to me) Thanks Also, what about the 10 oz stacker? Even tho it's not hand poured, it has the Scottsdale logo on it (as apposed to Materion) and would be much more recognizable probably... Would either of these be worth snagging before they're gone, and if so, which one of the two do you think has the most potential?
Materion is the manufacturer - they all have Materion on the back. Current designs I'm aware of are Silver Stackers, Southern Cross, Scottsdale, APMEX, Southwest Bullion. I don't think the Academy branded version has been in production for a while. There's also variations in the hallmark on the back - Academy, large Materion, small Materion. Plenty of version should a collector decide to target a set.
is this why it is now priced a lot more higher in comparison to the perth mint ? it is off like $6 /10 oz in gold stacker web in comparison to the 10 oz for perth minth
At one stage we had them priced about $10-15/bar higher than Perth Mint depending on quantity - it was only a few months ago we were able to offer them at close to the same price for numerous factors such as competition, exchange rates, shipping volumes/rates etc. Basically what we have on hand is what is left for one of our flagship products, after that, no more.
Bit of OCD on my part, its not so much the silver, its the fact that they stack neatly, I cannot stand things that do not stack neatly into the safe, quite the contrary with the rest of the house though
That's a shame to hear this, I have no stacker bars my self, but they do seem to be popular. My thinking is some entity will pick up where materion is leaving off, it might be a while but if the demand is there... Anyones guess though
I am not going to lie, I saw this thread and then did a search on ebay and found this gem, yes, I just won it and yes I paid too much. I just love the look of it! http://www.ebay.com/itm/170891319142 [imgz=http://forums.silverstackers.com/uploads/7394_materion_bar.jpg][/imgz]