Ep.6 - Old Silver Bars That are Worth a Fortune with Michael Mayer #money #silver #numismatics
Alright. Today, I'm very excited to do a very special episode. They're all special to me. They're like my little children. Each one of them is special in its own way, but today is extra special.
Tony Gryckiewicz:We're gonna go over a particular segment of the market that I'm excited about. We have a guest here, Michael Mayer of Elevented Inc. Michael has been in this business for a little while. We've met, locally at a local show outside of Philadelphia, and, I really love all the stuff that he does and his energy and his excitement. So I decided to have him on the podcast.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So, Michael, why you go ahead and introduce yourself and tell tell a little bit about, you know, the this market or the industry, or I should say just your business and when you got into it and just give a little intro about who you are.
Michael Mayer:Sure. Thanks for having me. Really, really excited to be here. As you said, Tony, I'm I'm Michael Mayer, president of and founder of Elevented Inc. My partner is Tom Kovac, and we we run this business together.
Michael Mayer:I joined the precious metals community around COVID. I had a fear that the dollar was losing its stability in the world as the reserve currency. I think a lot of people actually had that fear back then. Was a At that time, it was more rational than conspiracy driven. And I started collecting.
Michael Mayer:I started collecting Modern first. I bought my first silver round from AtmeX, my first gram of gold from AtmeX, got it in my hands, and there's something about it. To this day, it's almost indescribable. It just feels like treasure. It feels like like I hunted and found something.
Michael Mayer:Believe it or not, and this is probably gonna absolutely blow your mind when I tell you this.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Okay. I'm
Michael Mayer:ready. The reason I got into trading was you. In this vintage poured bars
Tony Gryckiewicz:Okay. Years ago on
Michael Mayer:a group on Facebook that I love. Yeah. You put up a Swiss of America five ounce extruded bar that still resided within its original thick plastic sleeve. Yep. And I had never participated in a D and D, a deal no deal format, which is a way to acquire metals in the social media marketplace, and you struck a deal with me, and it was painless, and I got it, and I got and that was one of my first vintage bars, and I was hooked.
Michael Mayer:And then a year later, I think I traded it out for something that was worth $50 more, and I started seeing the
Tony Gryckiewicz:You sold me out for $50.
Michael Mayer:Yeah. I did. That's what that's what you were worth to me, $50 $50 in my experience. $50 in my reference.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Nice.
Michael Mayer:So yeah, that's, that's, that's basically where I started from there. It just naturally evolved. In January 2024, my friend, Neff Vila Senor launched the element exchange group on Facebook, along with help from Wyatt Nordberg. And I volunteered. I volunteered as tribute, and we helped to build this group, and it became a business for me.
Michael Mayer:It is a side income for me, but it's grown by by the day. So that's a kind of synopsis.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Well, I will say I'm very excited that that I was part of your, your journey there. I do remember what we're referring to is we're referring to some Facebook groups and there are groups on Facebook where we trade and kind of gush about our collections and we show off pieces. We have things called Toner Tuesday. Toner Tuesday is a day that we show off typically a piece that has like a nice tone to it. I've had a couple episodes about toned coins, so we can also have toned vintage silver bars as well.
Tony Gryckiewicz:And I sold in this group that we were referring to many years ago, back in 2020, right around COVID or so. And so that's, I guess how sparked their interest, which is, which is really cool. I remember that exact sale. And I remember having those extruded bars from Swiss of America and the original wrapper. I think it was a five ounce bar.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yes. And yeah, I remember I remember doing that deal. So that's really exciting to hear.
Michael Mayer:Yeah, sure.
Tony Gryckiewicz:All right. So I want to start with the basics. So what defines a vintage silver ingot or bar? Is it purely the age or is there other factors like a design or the where it was made or the manufacturing style? What's your, what's your take on that?
Michael Mayer:So great question. The definition of vintage is a sliding scale that is generally agreed upon to reside within a timeframe. So to more specific, currently, of the community believes vintage to be anything that was made before 1990. Some communities have slid that scale forward to be before 1995. Of course, as we keep moving forward through
Tony Gryckiewicz:time Okay.
Michael Mayer:The definitions, you know, expands. That's number one. So you're looking at a range anywhere 1995 and back, but mostly prior to 1990. It has to be it has to be precious metals, obviously, goes without saying. Mhmm.
Michael Mayer:Predominantly silver, but, obviously, gold bars and palladium platinum exist in the vintage world. They miss they must not be with notably few exceptions, and there are some, they must not be monetized. So you can't call a 1921 Morgan silver dollar vintage by this definition because it is a monetized sovereign coin. There are some exceptions. As a matter of fact, throughout this entire conversation, I think the common theme that we're going to find on all of the topics we cover is that there are exceptions to every generalization that we're going to make.
Michael Mayer:Might be true of other things in life as well. That would be by definition. Pre prior to 9090, 1990 personally, I call it 1989 and earlier. Can't be monetized. Can be a ingot.
Michael Mayer:Can be a round. Doesn't have to be a bar. Can be pressed. Can be poured. Can be cast.
Michael Mayer:The form doesn't preclude it from its definition as a vintage piece.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. That's a good point. I know that there are some, you know, maybe there's a segment of the segment here in terms of this market where they focus mostly on the poured ingots because typically I would say the really old stuff, the style of making those set of manufacturers typically, you know, a poured design, but at the same time, one of the major manufacturers that we all collect, which is Engelhard, which we'll get into, they have a lot of stamped ingots or ingots that are not necessarily poor per se. And those also carry a premium and are interesting to collect. Yeah, when I got started in this, I remember the finding line was 1980.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So it was kind of, I don't know if they were, they limited it to 80 where, or it was, you know, like within the eighties, but it really key point was a lot of the bars that we're going look at today were made in the 1980s because there was a run up in the price of silver at that time. For those of you know your history, at least probably not a lot of people out there in the 1980s, there were these two brothers, the Hunt brothers who decided they wanted to corner the market on silver. They tried to purchase up, I believe a lot of the silver commodity futures. They ran the price of silver up to, I believe it's high all time high in the $50 $55 kind of range. And so because of that, people now became lucrative to find silver, to get it, to refine it, to pour bars.
Tony Gryckiewicz:And you had a lot of these mom and pop manufacturers, mom and pop refiners creating ingots to then sell to people because they wanted to buy silver. And so now today, fast forward forty years, I guess, and now these things have become collectible and interesting. So anything you want to add to that before I jump into our presentation or picture you wanna show?
Michael Mayer:Just that there is a to I agree with you. There is a huge much larger demand for poured ingots over pressed ingots, but their demand is there for all. And, additionally, 19 are definitely your fattest in the center of the bell curve of where you're gonna find poured ingots, but there's nineteen seventies, sixties, fifties. They are out there. And they have of those.
Michael Mayer:Yeah. We we're gonna look at some of those. Sure.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and frankly, you know, the the really uber rare stuff goes all the way back into the nineteen nineteenth century. So the eighteen hundreds.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Precious metals have been a part of the economy for centuries in this country, as well as in the entire world. And offices called assay offices existed where people could bring the metals that they had, let's say pulled out of the ground out of North Carolina and they wanted to create a gold coin or a gold bar or something out of this, this, this metal. The assay offices would boil, boil down, kind of melt it down and create and refine it and create a singular ingot of a particular fineness and purity. Then use those, I guess, to get back to the people who asked for it or to turn that then into coins so they could use it for actual money and so forth. So yeah, so some of these, not some of the ones that we have today, but there is a whole market for those that are like nineteenth century that go, oh, wait, way, way back.
Tony Gryckiewicz:That's we're talking about big, big, big, big money as well to get into some But of those
Michael Mayer:I think people will be shocked. Well, if if this is your if this podcast is your first foray into vintage port bars, a lot of you are going to be absolutely shocked when we start talking about valuations.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Valuations. Yeah. It it will be yeah. Think I I agree with you. So let me let me take a second to bring up the presentation.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Okay. All right. So we have probably about close to 19 or so images to walk through, and this is gonna be this is really when I say the tip of the iceberg, this is this is like some snow that's kind of like wafting on the top of Okay. The This is, there is, there are so many different refiners and so many different varieties and so many different years that these types of things have been produced. We're kind of just touching.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So, anyways, you sent this over to me a good example of some port ingots, it looks like. So tell us a little bit about these.
Michael Mayer:The reason why I selected these ingots to send to you is to show everybody what you're looking at is essentially the entry levels of vintage port bars. There are characteristics visually that are very telling that these are older ingots, their tone, their natural darkening, the stamps, the writing of nine ninety nine fine instead of writing f s to represent the purity is an indication of or fine silver being written out is an indication of an older bar. The fact that these bars are in fact bored is an indication that they're older bars. But the reason I selected these in particular was because of one of the fundamental rules of vintage bar trading that we all live by as a as a culture, which is unless there is a maker's mark stamped on the bar, no matter how sure you are that something is in fact a maker, you are, it is expected that you will not call it or refer to it or try to transact on it. This also can work, this works for you when you're purchasing them because you can, you are well within your rights to say, I understand those four two ounce ingots look strikingly similar to a Nevada CoinMarc poured bar Yeah.
Michael Mayer:Exactly. Nineteen eighties. However, since they are not stamped as such, they do not trade as such, and they do not hold the premium that they do. Yeah. Somebody that they should.
Michael Mayer:Somebody in the community once said to me something that blew my mind. He said, you think we're trading silver? We're not trading silver. We're trading stamps.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Oh, wow.
Michael Mayer:And that is a very profound thought. Once you once you establish that the bar is $9.09 9 silver, after that, we don't care. Now we're gonna look at what does this bar as a piece of art and history bring to the to the table. So this is the a a entry level example of vintage ingots. As a buyer, you should be avoiding premiums on these.
Michael Mayer:And as a seller, you should avoid representing them as something they are not. Okay. That's why I started with these.
Tony Gryckiewicz:That's great. No, it's a fantastic little intro. And I completely agree with what you're saying. It's very profound little quote and statement. And I think one of the things I'll point out that you just said is it's a theme that's been coming up in the last couple episodes I'm doing, which is this concept of art and owning art.
Tony Gryckiewicz:When we, when we trade coins or we collect coins and we collect a toned coins or we collect coins of a particular look or appearance, as well as then getting into these ingots, we always keep talking about them as pieces of art because they are unique and they're beautiful. You learn the beauty through learning about the segment of the market. In my opinion, you figure out and you get exposure and you start to feeling a sense of beauty is and the aesthetics aspect kind of grows in you in my experience, I guess my experience. And it's the same thing that happened when I studied art and got into the Renaissance and so forth years ago. But I digress.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Right. We'll just keep moving. All right. So we got now this one. I see definitely, I see a couple that don't really have any hallmarks and then I got one down here.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So tell us, go ahead.
Michael Mayer:This would be a I guess you could argue one one could argue this is a step up from what I just showed you. They are still unhallmarked bars, but however, they become a little bit more they have more character to them. They have more unique identifying marks where bruelly vintage connoisseurs know which likely these stamps are. They weren't shared by too many refiners. And this is another example of generic vintage bars.
Michael Mayer:Generic vintage sounds almost like counterintuitive. Generic meaning not stamped by the maker. Yep. I have no problem saying that that top bar that it looks extruded is undoubtedly a New Hope gold and silver mold. Yeah.
Michael Mayer:New Hope gold and silver stamp, Sometimes the International Coin Museum mold and stamp. Okay. The center bar, a PURCO. I have one behind me that's Mhmm. I I can pull right now that has that exact thing, PURCO, written across it.
Michael Mayer:The bottom bar, a little harder for me to to tell you who the maker is, whether or not that pure silver is a generic stamp. My education is limited on that one, but before we move on, I just wanna point out that one reason why I'm showing you these is because to enter into the vintage bar space is specific you have a desire for one of few things. One is price preservation. So when silver pricing spot starts to drop, these bars, the ones before it, despite being entry level and unhallmarked, they tend to hold their value, their their value per ounce better than generic silver does. However, generic or modern bullion.
Michael Mayer:However, you can't have it both ways, which also means that as the price rises, these rising concert. So you're not really they are a little resilient because they have that vintage check mark, that vintage moniker, and they and they're they're insulated from negative spot movement, a splash. A purpose advantage is to insulate yourself from negative spot movement. So people sometimes think that they're gonna there's gonna be a compounding premium as the spot price rises, and that hasn't proven to be the case, especially in 2025.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Gotcha. Alright. I think you just blew some people's minds. Okay. That was good.
Tony Gryckiewicz:That was good. That was good. Was very in-depth. I want I want to bring it back to a very almost, you know, elementary question here. Do you have any if you had to guess, why did, New Hope, which was a refiner outside in in Pennsylvania, remember, why did they choose not to put their hallmark on this top bar, you think?
Michael Mayer:It's a it's a great question. I have a very strong opinion, and I know for a fact that it's true for Okay. So, there are some refiners that will make a bar like this and then sell it to a private business. Maybe it's a Maybe coin it's another refiner. Maybe it's another whoever and saying, Hey, I did the work.
Michael Mayer:I did the stamps. You wanna buy yourself a stamp, Paul, Mark them, and away they go. We see that all the time across the Ohio bars. They're oftentimes referred to the Ohio as the, I have some in the photo slot, in the photo show, where this mold was reused by seven, eight different companies, but SilverTowne or Ohio Freshness Metals poured them all. Yep.
Michael Mayer:And so that there's a share there. Sometimes they're an error. Sometimes someone just fell asleep at the wheel and just didn't do their job that day. Yeah. Errors is something that
Tony Gryckiewicz:we could do a whole separate thing just on bars that has some kind of an error to them. And by the way, just wanna be really clear. I've used the term bar and ingot interchangeably. So most of the time they're referred to as silver ingots. Ingots being a strip of metal, I guess, or kind of a loaf of metal.
Tony Gryckiewicz:I don't know what the right definition, but a bar is I think a little bit more of a colloquial kind of term for it, but we use these terms completely interchangeably in the course of the conversation. I think a lot of the collectors just kind of refer to them as bars, so we'll stick with that. So by the way, I'm not educating you, I'm educating our audience. I know you know this stuff.
Michael Mayer:Oh, no. I know it's
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. Not being like, hey, Michael. I don't know if you knew the difference between an ingot and a bar, but I'm going tell you now here in this public podcast what that is. No, not not doing that. So anyways, we'll we'll move on.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Alright. So this was one of the ones that I didn't know where to throw into the the mix. So this ended up just kinda naturally going into here. There is this a good segue segue for this one? Okay.
Michael Mayer:So now we've entered into Hallmark bars. Now, Agnon is my personal favorite refiner. And to be clear, sometimes one of the misnomers or misunderstandings about me personally is that people believe that I know so much more than I do. I'm fluid in Google. There's too much.
Michael Mayer:If you were to put a random bar on the screen right now and say, tell me who I don't even know the name of the I know the guy's name might be I think it's Paul something that was a Chicago gangster that opened up Agnon and then rented a couple of bays in Pompano Beach, Florida, started refining, and then got taken out of business by this by this town or the state for improperly venting cyanide. Okay. That story is awesome to me. But Agnon is a sleeper, meaning that it's not a refiner that is as collectible as a SilverTowne or an Engelhard, but these bars command premiums. It's these are 600 these are easily 600 to $800 apiece.
Michael Mayer:And just to put that in perspective for people, that's those are 10 ounce bars. That's $80 an ounce Oh, yeah. Of those bars. Why? Well, there's a couple of reasons why these specific Agnon bars have that kind of premium.
Michael Mayer:Number one, if you notice, these are sequential serial numbers. People love that, and the num the neurology of collecting. Yep. Two, Agnon is has a has a unique propensity to have machined tops with what's known as eight sides. So it's like, on one hand, it kinda looks like a pressed bar until you look at the side of it and you see it's got pore lines and layering.
Michael Mayer:And that makes it unique. And although we can't flip on the backside of these bars, the backsides are completely poured and soft. So they're this is my favorite bar, but this would be considered on the moderate to lower end of premiums in vintage bars. If you were to walk into a coin shop and somebody had these laying in there and they're like spot plus $2, this would be a great
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yes. Buy for
Michael Mayer:No. Yes.
Tony Gryckiewicz:All right. All right. Interesting. I've actually never seen these before. So this is new for me.
Tony Gryckiewicz:I did notice the sequential aspect to them, but if I walked into a coin shop and I just saw something even of this style, I saw the fact that it had a hallmark on it. It was clearly poured. It had this kind of old look to it. I would be buying them absolutely a 100%. I would be trying to pick these guys up just for a huge, huge value.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Cause there is a market, as we're explaining to everybody here, there is a, is a market of people that love this stuff. As Michael just mentioned about values, that's approximately what those, what these bars would trade for out there. So moving on to this. So I bring up this one because this, think looks a lot like those ones from previous slides or no, those other ones look kinda like
Michael Mayer:the Those static were actually on on Hallmark. These are actually Hallmark's fives. Alright. I brought this up to, I brought this slide in to talk about how what people collect is not always driven by the same factors. Here you have four Star Metals bars.
Michael Mayer:These are, again, moderate to lower premium vintage poured bars. I know for a fact, and I've seen it myself, that there are people that do number sequencing chases on these. Great, great folk, great guys on Facebook that I follow. Can you explain what that is real quick? It's when you want one bar of every weight down to the, in this case, to the undress.
Michael Mayer:5.41, point four two, 5.3, and these people will hunt these bars to fill in their sequences. As you can imagine, as their sequences get larger, those gaps begin to matter more to them, because now they've got so much more invested in this project emotionally and monetarily.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Wow.
Michael Mayer:So these bars can sometimes command, this is something no one would ever think of, that if there's only a couple of 5.4 ones that were ever happened to be made, then the weight of the bar can actually drive its value by a hundredth of an ounce.
Tony Gryckiewicz:That's interesting.
Michael Mayer:See A hundredth of an ounce can be to be a $100 more
Tony Gryckiewicz:if
Michael Mayer:to the right person who can't fill who's sequencing is what I'm saying, you know, as
Tony Gryckiewicz:an example. Yeah. This is a very esoteric element here of collecting side. But I believe you, I actually never I never heard that. What I've I'm more familiar with is like, say these serial numbers, 1537.
Tony Gryckiewicz:If let's say that was 1582, January 1982, somebody might want that bar because it resembles their birth date.
Michael Mayer:Absolutely. Or just one. That's another thing.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. Serial numbers
Michael Mayer:tend to command values. Yeah.
Tony Gryckiewicz:I didn't know that. That's that's very interesting. I was not aware of the of the individual chasing of the of of the digits. Yeah. And and, you know, I I think, we're we are certainly getting into the, I would say the, I don't know, the realm of this that is the really intense collector who is trying to build sets.
Tony Gryckiewicz:And, you know, this is a great kind of point because I think with, with coins, there's, there's many ways of collecting dates and mint marks and so forth. When it comes to vintage bars, a lot of people want collect different ingots from the various refiners, knowing that within a particular refiner, can then collect within weights or cereals or so forth as another level of, of you know, it's interesting because that is what drives the hunt. That's what gets you into the car every weekend to go looking at your local coin shops and trying to find the the one that you need.
Michael Mayer:It's also what makes the hobby very personal and very unique to you and your own experience by by deciding what's important to you, Not just being told or accepting that I'm gonna go hunt stamps. I'm gonna go hunt rare Engelhardt. I'm gonna go hunt rare. Okay. You can do that, and I encourage you to do that if that makes you happy.
Michael Mayer:But why the reason why I hunt Agnon is because others aren't, and it brings me satisfaction. And I don't have to pay through the pay through the nose to get that next piece. That's also important. Okay.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So we are four pictures into 19. Sure. And we're gonna keep cruising here. All right. So we get into one of the big boys and I call this, this is not from a dollar perspective for this particular bar, but Engelhardt, in my opinion, is kind of one of the bedrock or foundation refiners for this whole market.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Engelhardt has been around since, I don't even want to throw a number out there. I want to say it was the early seventies or maybe even the sixties and some of their
Michael Mayer:earlier. Yeah.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Does it? Okay.
Michael Mayer:I think it is earlier.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yes. Yeah. Some of the prototype hours, of like the ingot mine stuff, the stuff that they made for other people kind of definitely gets in there. But they got into their heyday kind of in the eighties. Is that is that right?
Michael Mayer:Yes. Yes. Most of their production took place in the nineteen eighties. Yes.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So we're talking about a a very large refiner that has created silver ingots or bars both in The United States as well as in Canada, as well as I believe they operate today in Australia still.
Michael Mayer:That's a debate it's a debatable I mean, I'm I'm Okay. There's there's controversy surrounding Englehart, Australia.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Oh, okay. Interesting. I didn't know that. Alright. So anyways, tell us a little bit about this this little loaf, this pea loaf.
Michael Mayer:Sure. What you're looking at here is undeniably the American Silver Eagle of vintage bars. Okay. This is a the most standardized poured or cast 10 ounce bar in the vintage world. It's like, you know, one of the things I love about, and it's gonna sound like I'm derailing for a second, but I'm not.
Michael Mayer:One of the things I love about collecting gold grain is that you're really never gonna argue with anyone about what it's worth. It's just sure gold. The Engelhard P Loaf is what this is referred to. P is the prefix ahead of the serial number, is the one of the most standard vintage bars when you could find them everywhere, but the valuations placed on them will be a very tight range on the social media platforms that we exist in. In real life, when you're in the store or you're at a show, all bets are off on what things get valued at, but reasonably and consistently, the Engelhard 10 ounce pea loaf is a staple with a valuation range within $15 where it will just, you you're gonna buy within that range day in and day out and not get hurt.
Michael Mayer:And they are resilient to negative spot movement. They're not impervious. They're just resilient. And they are that that's that's a staple of most vintage bar collectors' portfolios that also wish to have an element of stacking to them, meaning that they're not just trying to collect collectible super high premium ingots that are rare. They wanna stack silver.
Michael Mayer:This is their way of doing it.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. We'll get into some of those high end ones if, hopefully, if we have time here. Sure. But we we will get into some of those high end ones here in a minute, but let's move on to this. So this is Silvertown.
Michael Mayer:Yes.
Tony Gryckiewicz:I don't I've never personally purchased a whole lot of these, but tell us a little bit about this particular refiner.
Michael Mayer:This is very similar to Engelhard in the bar that we just showed, the pilaf, because these are a very standard poured collectible. These are a little rarer because they're missing serial numbers. When they don't have serial numbers, they're a little bit rarer, but the Silvertown Port 10 ounce ingot is a standard. Again, you're gonna pay within a 15 to $20 range. There are people that prefer these over Engelhard pillows.
Michael Mayer:I'm one of them.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Okay.
Michael Mayer:But they are very standard. You're not gonna you're not gonna pay through the nose, and you're not gonna get them for cheap. It's you gotta pay a very and you'll notice that I'm not giving dollar valuations on these because this these some of these prices will be obsolete if silver's 39 if silver's 33 or 43 an ounce. These move.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Right. So these kinda carry a regular somewhat of a premium or, like, a cushion above the spot level.
Michael Mayer:Yes. And when we Yeah. Targeting our way up.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. When we say spot, just three, I mean, I'm not going to assume anything in terms of background and knowledge about this stuff. So the spot price of a metal is the price that it trades for without any sort of premium at all. It's almost a fictional number because there's always a little bit of a premium either the buy or the sell side of that particular number. But these are numbers that are published every day for gold, for silver, for platinum, for palladium.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So this is considered the melt number and so forth. Ends up becoming kind of the benchmark that you make negotiations for on the buy side or the sell side. So that is the best definition I have for the spot price and off top of the dome. But, all right. So let's move on to this next one here to the SilverTowne five oz.
Michael Mayer:The reason why I wanted to show this one was because now we're starting to look at pricing that does not necessarily correspond to the price of silver. So on the previous slide, we looked at SilverTowne, same brand made around the same time, 10 ounce bars. For the sake of this conversation, and I'm just gonna call it out, at the time of this recording, silver's trading at $38.26 Retail on those 10 ounce bars that we just looked at can range anywhere from 425 to $455, which is $45 an ounce.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Okay.
Michael Mayer:Now if we can go forward, you would think that this would be somewhere around $202,100 dollars, $40 to $2.25 an ounce. No shot. The premium on these is way higher. In our world, smaller means more, almost all the time. So some people start saying, well, then this is trading at, you know, $50 an ounce.
Michael Mayer:There comes a point where we stop valuing them based on their weights. It's not about the weights anymore. It's about the stamps, about the story, about the collectability. Yeah. These are SilverTowne five ounce ingots made at the same time as the 10 ounce, and they would trade at 50, 55, 60 well, maybe not 60, but 50 to $55 an ounce versus the previous ones, which are traded $45 an ounce and made by the same people at the same time.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. Yeah. I've I've I've heard it said usually the fives go for the same amount that the tens go for. Maybe in this case, it's actually a little bit more even, but
Michael Mayer:Per ounce. Yes.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. On a per ounce basis. I guess, then what I mean is that the the total dollar amount. So the so one five ounce you said was how much approximately right now?
Michael Mayer:These five ounces are which wouldn't in this market, I would I would see them trading for around $2.50 to $2.60.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Okay. Alright. I was actually thinking about something else. I was thinking of I think I was thinking of some Engelhard fives and twelves like this.
Michael Mayer:An Engelhard five ounce or three ounce is 900 to depending on the stance 2,000.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. We have one of those coming up. But okay. Alright. Gotcha.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Alright. So we're looking at about $2.50 and then and then about $4.50 roughly is what you said on these guys today. Alright.
Michael Mayer:$10 per ounce difference.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So now we have yes. Yes. So now we have some angle hearts. I recognize some of these. I won't steal your thunder.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Tell us a little bit about what we're looking at.
Michael Mayer:So this is one of those examples where I will tell you that I know I I'm not I'm not so educated to the point where I'm like third series, fifth, but I will tell you that if you look very carefully and if you move your mouse to the left of the one in the middle bar where it says one one zero seven six, these are those little little nubs there, those are that bar is known as a partial x eight y nine, which basically means that during the serial serialization process of this bar, they accidentally did not did not move the radial dials away so that nothing would snap into the bar. Well, you can see the x eight above the one. You could also see the y nine beneath it. It's a this is an example of both being there, x eight, and then beneath it, y nine. Yeah.
Michael Mayer:So this is an example where that middle bar, which also has beautiful pour lines, might trade for more than another bar, which to the unassuming eye on this page appears to be the same. Yeah. But it's not the same. And it's and and it will trade for a different valuation because of this error or because calling it an error is prob using the word error is people are very fast and loose, and obviously myself included sometimes, with the word error. Not sure that I would call it x eight y nine an error, but it is notable, and it is a notable difference.
Michael Mayer:And there is a small premium that is on these bars. I can't flip the phonograph over over, but what's on the back of the bars matters as well. Is there waiting lines? Is there dimples? Is there color?
Michael Mayer:Color is a big deal. We haven't got to color, but color is a big deal with these bars. They command huge value if they have that if they're colored correctly.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. Yeah. So what I noticed immediately about these, I love this, this, the center bar. So like you can see how we're talking about these is giving me a little bit like works of art in terms of characteristics, qualities of the, of the, of the Inga here that we think are more valuable or more attractive than others. Just immediately, I can see that the, that the pour lines we're referring to here is that the, the, the lines that you can see along the side that are where the metal had cooled and had created this kind of design that's around the edges of the metal that we call those pour lines because it happened when the metal was poured, when the silver was poured into the mold and then it was cooled.
Tony Gryckiewicz:It for whatever reason created these kind of these special lines around it. These other ones here doesn't necessarily have that. The other thing that's super important is the clarity of the hallmark. In these examples, we're gonna have we're gonna look at a couple other angle hards. You're gonna see a lot more clear kind of hallmarks.
Tony Gryckiewicz:In these examples, you have a little bit of not full completeness. So there's a little bit of weakness in the stamp. It's kind of similar to like a strike of a coin being not a full strike that occurs on a, I don't know, a walking Liberty half dollar and you you're kind of missing part of Liberty's hand or whatever. It's very similar to that. And just to reiterate, as Michael is explaining about these radio dial things, that's an important point.
Tony Gryckiewicz:These pieces typically carry a considerable premium. In today's market, where would you price these about today?
Michael Mayer:They are approaching $500 Okay. They are approaching $500.
Tony Gryckiewicz:A piece.
Michael Mayer:Yep. It depends. It depends. They can they can go above that at times. They can go below that at times, but they're they're there's usually a despair a delta between Silvertown bars and Engelhard.
Michael Mayer:The challenge for us all right now is that silver spot is so high in a recent historic sense that the markets are struggling to find an equilibrium on the valuations of bars that are in the moderate to lower premium range. Because when silver was trading at $23 an ounce, it was easy to say Silvertown, 10 ounce Ford Bar, $300. Anglehart, X8 Y9, four and a quarter to $4.50. We just had this birth and now we're just like, well, I can melt the thing for $390 So what's the premium? The premiums have become depressed.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Mayer:In relation to the spot price.
Tony Gryckiewicz:I want to show, here's an example of we were talking about a lot of premium for a small bar. This is a bar that I recently owned, in place with a collector. So Anglehart produced sizes that were smaller. So three ounce, four ounce, five ounce, seven ounce, and especially the, the, the odd weights, the three, the four, the seven, these can command very high premiums. Actually have another one actually in inventory right now, which is a four ounce of the top hallmark, which as we're talking about all this stuff, sounds like we're speaking a different language, but there's actually a really helpful website.
Tony Gryckiewicz:It's called allanglehard.com. I'm to put a link in the, in the show notes of this. And it's a place for people to go and learn about a lot of these refiners and specifically about Engelhard because it has cataloged all the different varieties of these bars so that you can learn about them different styles. So this particular bar, I believe this was about $950 or so. Think when I sold it, this is a three ounce.
Tony Gryckiewicz:And so if think about that on a percentage basis, or I'm sorry, on a, like a dollar per ounce basis, we're talking about roughly $300 per ounce. It's pretty strong premium, but these are widely collected and pretty desirable, right?
Michael Mayer:Yes. So as a collector of rare ingots, there is no question the valuation you placed on this is actually a competitive valuation. Sometimes these get up much higher. Yeah. It's just if you're collecting these for yourself, I would just just as some guidance, have a plan.
Michael Mayer:If you're collecting for a long a long period of time, if you plan on leaving this to loved ones, if you plan on retiring, have a plan. Because at some point, if you present this ingot to the wrong person, they are going to look at you and say, what are you talking about? I will give you $150 for this. Yeah. And so so collecting them is is a is awesome, and I support it.
Michael Mayer:And obviously, it's a core part of my business. Whenever anybody asks me about like, oh, what should I do down the road? I always say to them, start a spreadsheet. Start a spreadsheet. Write down what you're painting.
Michael Mayer:Write down a note about where it goes, where you could sell it. Yep. Because you'll get great this is these are only going up. They're I really believe it. I I they're only going
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. Well and we'll we'll talk a little a little bit in a second about the market and about the collector base and and the growth of it and the market today. But I agree with you. This is this market is in its kind of earliest stages. There is not nearly the size of, let's say, market as with US coins that are in this particular market today.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So there's a lot of potential here. There's a lot of people that are going to watch this podcast. They're going to get interested in vintage silver ingots. Might reach out to one or the two of us. Our contact will be in the show notes, of course.
Tony Gryckiewicz:And they want to dabble into vintage jingles for the first time or start getting on a hunt themselves, going on a road trip and stop at coin shops and goes look for this stuff and they'll kind of be bitten by the bug. So as more collectors enter this market, the demand for these items is going to increase. The supply is fairly fixed, right? They're not making any more of these things. And in fact, a lot of them, or I would say a lot of them, but some of them are still making their way into the melting pot.
Michael Mayer:A 100%. If you're finding these bars in a coin shop, that means that there's ones you did not find that got destroyed.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. That's excellent. That is an excellent point. All right. So moving on.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So just want to show a couple more angle hearts. These are have some incredible stamps. These are referred to as waffle backs because the backside of the bar has this waffle y display. There's another variety of this that actually looks a lot more Grid? Yeah, more of a grid fashion.
Tony Gryckiewicz:I've been told there's the waffle back and then the grid back or do you know what is the correct term for these? Are these these are waffle backs, right?
Michael Mayer:Those are a 100% waffle backs. Yeah. And you are right in describing the other style, which almost looks like someone poured syrup in thin lines on the back of it. Those are called those are those are those are actually called scribble backs or grid backs, depending on scribble backs would be more like chaotic Grid backs are more uniformed lines.
Tony Gryckiewicz:And then And
Michael Mayer:it's also interesting to note this is interesting. If you're watching this, I was gonna wait to say this. Some of you might say, we already saw these. No. You did not.
Michael Mayer:That takes time. You did not see these yet. These are they say pilaf. Right? This looks like a pilaf.
Michael Mayer:But you notice on this top is flat. This is a cored bar completely. The bar that I showed early that we showed earlier with the rubber band black line in the middle
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. Let me go back. That's a
Michael Mayer:cast bar.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yep. And it's refined.
Michael Mayer:More common than the ones that Tony was just showing. They Gotcha. And they're worth more. They trade for more.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. I always look for waffle if somebody presents me waffle bags to buy, I always buy them. This is, in my opinion, a staple of the Engelhard Engelhard market, and they're very desirable. They're fully poured bar, and they they usually very well struck on the on on the front side of it in terms of all the stamping. Yep.
Tony Gryckiewicz:And they have these great designs in the back.
Michael Mayer:One thing I gotta ask, you can go back a second?
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Mayer:Were these yours?
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. These are mine. Do you still have them? No, man. I don't sit on much of anything very long.
Michael Mayer:That bottom bar is a variety. It's a special it's a special variety on a very low mintage. Do you see the you see the shaved?
Tony Gryckiewicz:Don't tell me this stuff.
Michael Mayer:Beneath the it's shaved on the right and left. I could be a little bit mistaken. I'd to verify with you after the podcast, but recently, I was educated on that there are some iterations of these flat top pilafs where there's a shaved side part of the side that represents an even smaller I mean, guy this stuff goes very down the rabbit hole.
Tony Gryckiewicz:You reminded me of a of a of a story. I was recently at a show down in Georgia, and this gentleman came up, and he was asking about these the Lonega $5 gold pieces that I that I had. And one specifically asked me what I wanted for it and I gave him a I gave him a price and and he's he looked at me like with a smile on his face and said that, he could take the same coin across the room and sell it for like a couple thousand dollars more than I was asking. And like all of the people around us were like staring at this guy as this old timer, you know, he's like telling me what the coin really should be worth and whatever. And he points out that this is this really rare variety and it's where the date on the coin is like in a particular position close to where the Liberty head was.
Tony Gryckiewicz:And it's a lot more of a rare variety, etcetera. And and I'm just kind of standing there and I'm like, alright. Well, I guess then I'm not selling it, I guess, right now or, you know, I mean, as a dealer, you really don't wanna do that ever. You if you get you put a price out there and somebody wants to take it for that price, you have to honor that. And I I was willing to sell it to the guy for for sure, but he was kind of like giving me the the inside scoop in front of all of these people.
Tony Gryckiewicz:And then later in the show, people were like, oh, did you hear about that coin that's over at that table that, you know, that's a really rare variety blah blah blah. Oh, that's your that's your coin. Oh, really? Are you selling it? I was like, well, I don't know.
Tony Gryckiewicz:I guess I'd I'd do more more research on it. Long story short, I take it back home. I do the research. I open up my volume about the line of gold, and this dude was completely wrong. He was just totally wrong.
Tony Gryckiewicz:He was just yeah. I mean, he there was a special variety for that particular year and maybe I'll just I know this isn't about coins, but maybe I'll just flash up the the current the the variety that I had and one that the valuable one, but it was just it was just incorrect.
Michael Mayer:That's happened to me. I mean, that happens to all of us. And or the or the worst part is when it's when it's finally gone and someone's like, you sold that for that? That's Yeah. You know, twice the value.
Michael Mayer:Yeah. I wasn't implying that there. It's not like Well, it's you know, worth five times the amount or anything. I was
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. That's what I was worried about for a second. But anyways
Michael Mayer:That's not all. That's not what I to see.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So let's move on to this guy, Homestake.
Michael Mayer:So now we're starting to get into yeah. Now we're starting to get into, you know, just like the Engelhardt's three ounce, this is these are very premium ingots. There's a lot going on with these ingots as well. Aside from the fact that these are sequential serial numbers, 9691 and 9692, the bar on the left has a weight of 8.88 ounces, which is awesome, cool number weight.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Sure.
Michael Mayer:There's a lot of reasons somebody would buy these bars, and that actually probably should be mentioned that when you're buying vintage bars, finding bars that are collected for more than one reason is always a better bet than buying something that's collected for only one reason. So Yep. In this case, you've got sequential bars. You've got some pretty cool weights. You've got great hallmarks.
Michael Mayer:That's another reason people collect bars. Yep. You're in that sweet spot of under 10 ounces. Remember, once we get to 10 ounces and below, premiums rocket. I have no problem telling you guys that these I know the valuation of this pair.
Michael Mayer:This pair sold from me to another dealer for over $2,000 for the pair. $2,200 for the pair.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Makes sense.
Michael Mayer:You know, these are very these are nine point you know, this is I'm sorry. 8.8 ounces. I think it's an 8.42. These are not heavy ingots.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah.
Michael Mayer:These were really cool. I had these for a while though. I had to I had to wait for the right opportunity to
Tony Gryckiewicz:get them. Sequentials always bring a little bit more. We're talking about the serial number 9691 to 9692, sequential serials. And there's typically, if you sell them as a pair, they go for a little bit more or somebody who wants to make a sequential pair out of what they have that might be willing to, to, to kind of pay a little bit more, but you know, that that they would know that you wouldn't necessarily know that. So I'm gonna move on to another big bar in more ways than one.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So tell us a story on this big this this bad, Larry.
Michael Mayer:Sure. I was in Pennsylvania on a business trip, and anywhere I go, I do my best to carve out, sometimes, a hunt in local area shops. I won't give away my recipe, but I will tell you that I don't just go to coin shops, and if you're really looking to do this, go other places that other people wouldn't think to go. Yes, it is true that 99 times out of 100, there will be nothing there, but that's the joy of the hunt. I went into a flea market and found this bar sitting in someone's shop for a, I will just say, incredibly reasonable price.
Michael Mayer:This is a United States Philadelphia Mint Bar. Yep. Poured between '19 I wanna say 1946 and 1951, right around that area. This is known as a tombstone based on its overall shape. It is a massive piece.
Michael Mayer:And as I said earlier in the podcast, there's always exceptions to every rules. Every rule. So but I would say smaller is better. That's not always the case. This bar is so unique.
Michael Mayer:There's only, I believe, less than 10 of these bars ever discovered
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah.
Michael Mayer:Or belief. This bar sold an auction in on on on the July on 07/03/2025 for just just a touch under $20,000.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Nice, man. That's awesome.
Michael Mayer:This is this is a very, very rare piece of US history. I always sort of wondered what type of collector buys this, and when they do buy it, what do they do with it? There's a lot of people, myself included, that just go to the safe, door gets closed, take it out occasionally. But I feel a piece like this should be in a glass box in someone's foyer as a conversation piece or even possibly on the wall.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Sure. Well, it definitely, could definitely work as a paperweight. That's for sure, man. This Yeah.
Michael Mayer:This is hold down a few pieces of paper.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. For sure. It's impressive. I've never seen this particular style, and Philadelphia mint bars in general are uber rare and extremely expensive. So we're actually talking about we're gonna show in a couple seconds here, call them bars from the San Francisco mint.
Tony Gryckiewicz:But each of the major mints, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Denver, very couple of really rare ingots. I'm not too sure if New Orleans ever made a Eddie ever made an ingot.
Michael Mayer:I don't think so, but
Tony Gryckiewicz:I think so.
Michael Mayer:And then
Tony Gryckiewicz:there was also an asset office in New York and they are responsible for, I think maybe a couple of silver, but most of the bars I've seen out of them have been cold ones. But anyways, these mint bars are extremely rare. They were the exact purpose of them. I gotta do more research to figure out. Mike, do you know do you know why these mints made these bars?
Michael Mayer:I read that they were used and they were sold to jewelers to select approved vendors, but obviously that's not, I did not confirm it through a primary source. I did not, or through a, academic source. It was just something I read on a that they were I could not imagine, I could not understand when I read it why the US Mint would need to sell anything to a jeweler or, you know, or it didn't make any sense to me, but it is what I read. Yeah. So I'm not sure of the validity behind that, but I do know, as you as you obviously know as well, that this is something that, you know, this comes across your path, and and it's just, you're never gonna see it again.
Michael Mayer:It's you're never gonna see it again. Especially this one because there's actually an error in the purity.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Okay.
Michael Mayer:If you scroll into the 99, somebody originally to the right put a one half there, and then they stamped over it correctly with the five. And, you know, does that make it worth more money? I don't know if it would've I don't know if it would've went for a thousand dollars less if it didn't have it. Yeah. But Yeah.
Michael Mayer:Commands a huge premium on these bars. Huge premium.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So I just want to touch on a couple other high end bars. So David C. Davis, so they were getting into a particular refiner that, you know, I love these bars. I love them. I own them for a very, very short period of time.
Tony Gryckiewicz:And I placed them with a client of mine. And this was a refiner out of San Francisco many years ago. There's a lot of experts are gonna probably watch this video and know a whole lot more and think that I'm butchering it. So I'll just leave it to say that these are really on the high end of rarity. They rarely come up.
Tony Gryckiewicz:These particular ones came with these almost these leather leather pouches that fit the bars absolutely perfectly. I'm not too sure if they were original to the bar, but I believe these are roughly $3,500 to $4,000 individually, you know, a piece. There were, there was a five ounce one as well as a 10 ounce one. Both of these basically had the exact same value. So the five ounce being a little more rare and on a premium basis, you know, higher dollar amount per per ounce.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Moving on and talking about the mints. I have three San Francisco mint bars just to show everybody real briefly. And then we have a fantasy ingot to talk about. And this will be a little longer episode. I think it's really interesting conversation though, so I'm totally fine with it.
Tony Gryckiewicz:San Francisco, they also made these ingots. I put this on display as well as I had a small little display of these at the local show that I did local and Bay State coin show up in Marlborough, Massachusetts this past weekend. One gentleman walked up and his idea about what these are created for was to basically be the silver that was being prepared for the planchets. So the assay office or the, the, the mint would refine all of the silver. They would create ingots out of it, of a particular purity, and then use this when actually creating the silver coins that they would later end up creating.
Tony Gryckiewicz:It's a good theory. I don't know if there's any evidence to support it.
Michael Mayer:I I and I feel bad because I know this information is probably is probably well known, and it does harken back to what we were saying earlier. There's so much to know in this space. US assay bars are so far away from my expertise. I just happened to find one, you know, extremely rare one in the wild, but there's a whole culture and and you and know?
Tony Gryckiewicz:I love them.
Michael Mayer:Database of information about this out there, for lack of better
Tony Gryckiewicz:There there is information about these out on the on the Internet, and they've been traded in, like, auction sites for a number of years. They're extremely rare. This particular ingot is from the late, it's actually probably from the early 1940s. And this is referred to as a type one logo. I have another video on my YouTube channel that kind of explains a little bit about these.
Tony Gryckiewicz:This particular one is what's known as a five ounce class. So there was a stamp or a mold about that would fit about a five ounce ingot. They'd pour silver into them and then there are various weights. So usually between five and six and a half ounces is what most of them came out to be. This particular one is exceptionally nice.
Tony Gryckiewicz:I actually still have the single. I haven't sold it yet because I kind of want a pretty nice number for the bar. It's got a perfect patina. Stamp is completely clear, very noticeable. I mean, there no weakness at all to the to the logo, to the stamp.
Tony Gryckiewicz:All around, this is just kind of a kind of a perfect bar.
Michael Mayer:So Yes. It is. That is an absolutely beautiful and then the the the color is also yeah. The the the contrast between the stamp and the bar itself.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yep. It's
Michael Mayer:beautiful. Deep a lot and the deep stamps on the both the cereal and the purity are very alluring.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So I will you can reach out to me through through through an email if you're interested. I won't try to sell my bar here on the video, but we'll know, you could email me.
Tony Gryckiewicz:We could possibly talk. And then I have another two more examples. We got this one. This is a much later bar that was made. Obviously this one has a date on it of 1959.
Tony Gryckiewicz:I really liked this particular bar. Logo, the stamp is really, really deep and it is really clear. The round logo bars are slightly more scarce than some of the earlier ones. This is a serial number here, 961. This also has a lot number you can't see on the bottom side of it.
Tony Gryckiewicz:The lot, I guess that they, you know, creating these and building them are the lot they were making them in this particular one. 26 ounces, this is referred to as a 25 ounce class because the mold would have been to fit a 25 ounce bar. Some of them were poured a little bit heavy. This one being this 26.21. So, and I'll just throw this out there.
Tony Gryckiewicz:This is approximately $8,000 bar. So give me an idea. I don't know what that equates out to on an outs basis, but that's what that is. And then we have what's known as a sheared bar. Now this was made in the late forties and this has a different logo as you can recognize here.
Tony Gryckiewicz:This is referred to as a type two logo. I love the color and the toning of the color of this particular bar. And this particular one is made out of like a very large plants or very large essentially ingot that was sheared off to create these 25 ounce pieces. So very crude manufacturing here, definitely not for like, you know, to sell to the public or anything like that. So again, what the exact use of them were?
Tony Gryckiewicz:I really need to answer this question through some research, but if you look on the very left hand side, there is a part that you can see that the metal has been completely sheared off. This bar is approximately about $6,500 Sure. So, all right. And then the very last one, we're getting into just this kind of upper tier or kind of fantasy or well, this is a fantasy ingot. Let me tell, I'll tell the story really, really quickly.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Try to. So there was an enterprising gentleman in the 1960s and seventies, I believe maybe maybe a little bit later. His name was John Jay Ford. And he I believe took these trips out West and as part of his travels out West, he would bring back precious metals. So gold and silver and ingots that he was finding from various refiners.
Tony Gryckiewicz:I understand that he ended up creating a number of fantasy ingots. So he created basically forgeries or ingots that represented places that didn't exactly exist. So example, there is no Nevada silver company. This gentleman created these ingots, maybe with the help of somebody else. He stamped, created this logo to, or this hallmark that was stamped into the bar and then put these weights and so forth on them.
Tony Gryckiewicz:These bars actually traded in auctions a little bit in the on the East Coast, in auctions to collectors and so forth as being authentic pieces from the Old West and so forth. It wasn't until much later that they've discovered all of this stuff was kind of part of this. The, these kind of these fantasy ingots that were made in all these different varieties to represent these places that didn't really exist. Now, the funny thing is, is that today this is actually one of the most rare with the exception of your bar, the exception of your, you know, tombstone, which is hugely valuable. This is actually one of the most expensive, most rare bars that trades in the market today.
Tony Gryckiewicz:People actually desire and look for these fantasy ingots from this time period.
Michael Mayer:Never had, I've never even touched one. Never never even had one.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah, they're cool. Next time I, if I stumble upon any other, I've owned a couple, I don't know, four or five. They exist. They're out there. They're collected and gathered up by those collectors that want the premium and the absolute best.
Tony Gryckiewicz:And they put them aside. They kind of squirrel them away for many years. But next time I happen to come up across one, I'll definitely reach out to you, man.
Michael Mayer:Do you happen to know if this if there's anything regarding the monetization of the bar? Because I was under the impression that that's illegal. That someone who tries to say this is worth, you know, stamping a a coin or a bar that's not US currency with a dollar value and saying this is do you know anything about that in relation to this idea So or
Tony Gryckiewicz:I know that a lot of the old West bars, a number of the bars that traded that were, you know, true legit bars out of Assay offices would have the amount in ounces, but also a value of how much, silver there was in a monetary value. Prior to us actually creating a mint out west to be able to create coins, they had a real shortage for currency. They had a shortage of coins to be able to do any kind of commerce and so forth. So you had these like private mints setting up that created their own coins and said like this was, you know, through $5 worth of gold at the, that whatever the stated market price was for it. Years later, The United States outlawed that and said, you can't make any of your own stuff.
Tony Gryckiewicz:And they, you know, I don't exactly remember what the year was. I think it was in the 1860s or something around there, maybe a little bit earlier. And because of that, today we have this whole segment of numismatics, which is this, you know, prior to they call it private mint or territorial gold, you know, from the various, various people that would make these things. It's a whole segment. I hope to do a podcast.
Tony Gryckiewicz:I met somebody recently actually, who's an expert on this, in this particular area. So I'm hoping to have him on the program. But yeah, that'd my answer to that is I think that they, they, they created these types of things with a dollar amount because at that period of time it was not illegal and they needed it for the economy so that you knew how much you had in value here. It was easier to trade these than it would be to trade and do barter or whatever. Sure.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Makes sense. So, all right. I'm going to stop our presentation there. We're definitely going a little long, but that's I think that's fine because this is super interesting. I think people are going to be stoked about this.
Tony Gryckiewicz:We'll just wrap up with just a couple of questions for you here. You do a lot of Facebook live shows. So tell us a little bit about, you know, what's your approach to making those successful?
Michael Mayer:So the secret, well, the secret, but my approach to Facebook lives is to try to offer diverse products as often as possible. I mean, every single week I have to provide standard bullion products. I sell dealer to dealer. I do sell to collectors directly, of course. And many of those folks are looking for as generic silver as you can possibly imagine.
Michael Mayer:Buffalo's, American Silver Eagles, Canadian Maples, 10 ounce bars that are generic, SilverTown generic, you name it. But when the what what what brings the most entertainment and brings the best experience is when you show up with something that they that they just can't see somewhere else. And it's not about whether or not there's plenty of silver rounds that I sell for the same price as the American Silver Eagle, but they're unique. You're not seeing them very often. They don't command a massive premium, but they give the collector or the dealer or the investor, however you want to look at it, an opportunity to collect or deal on something that's off the beaten path.
Michael Mayer:I find that to be a, my strengths, our strengths at Elevate is that we offer this diverse product offering, and we don't focus just on the generic, run of the mill products that you see everywhere. Mhmm. That's and that and that's happening every every week. We also buy collections. We buy scrap jewelry.
Michael Mayer:We do everything that's that you would imagine would happen at a precious metals dealer, and and and that's that's that's our model, so to speak.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So what kind of buyers show up to these Facebook shows? Are they, like, hardcore collectors of these various vintage ingots, or are they investors in some way or, like, you know, or casual stackers? Like, how would you describe your your typical client and people that show up?
Michael Mayer:Our clients run the gamut. We have dealers that are trying to buy off Facebook because the market is so competitive there, which we understand. Then they take that inventory to their local shows or even their own shops. They stock their shops. Yes.
Michael Mayer:They'd love to buy off the street. In some in some places, they can't. We have so we have dealers. We have collectors that are looking for that wholesale price, and they can get it from us because we are very competitive on even the most the smallest purchase. We allow people to hold their inventory with us if they'd like.
Michael Mayer:We'll hold on to it for them so they can build up a box, save on shipping costs. We also have customers that are, to be very blunt, waiting for me to make a mistake. And that's okay. Honestly, that that that's okay. Mean It's part
Tony Gryckiewicz:of this whole thing.
Michael Mayer:Yeah. It's part of it. Like, put up a round or a bar, and they're just sitting there being like, he thinks that's generic. That's a rare but because there there's nothing I can't know it all. I I don't.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Sure.
Michael Mayer:I haven't been close. And so there's plenty of times where someone picks me off, but the feeling that they get is awesome, and I'm happy that they have it, and things keep coming because that's that's fine. You know? That's great. It's part of it too.
Michael Mayer:Everyone should win. Everyone should win. We try to make everybody feel like they've won and that they've gotten a fair price and they've gotten something great out of the show. And we also, if I if I may, we also and this part's really gonna make you laugh because we produce Fantasy Animates. Yeah.
Michael Mayer:With our with our company name on them.
Tony Gryckiewicz:I was gonna ask you
Michael Mayer:about can't see. They're very dark. These look like they're old. And that's something that I would just caution people as well when they're collecting silver bars, which is that just because it looks old and it looks like it's made a 100 years ago does not mean it was. We don't ever ever market these as vintage.
Michael Mayer:They're modern bars with our company name, and we could do a whole podcast on those. But but but there's that's that's that's our average customer.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. I was gonna ask you about those because I remember seeing you have you have, like, a like a deal with your customers with if you buy one of those bars, if you have one of those, you get a certain per do you are you still doing that? Okay.
Michael Mayer:Yes. With the Eleventy loyalty program where customers who own Eleventy bars, depending on how many they own, which ones they own, this is, like, an incredibly, like, obsessive collecting mechanism or ecosystem we put together. By the way, now that you've watched this podcast, we people collect our bars for serial numbers, you know, sequentials. Every serial number of every elemented bar is divisible by 11. So there's people collecting across series.
Michael Mayer:There's 11 bars in series one, twenty two bars in series two, thirty three bars in series three. Series four is in production. And if you collect these bars and you register them with us, letting us know which bars you have, we periodically will do, like, spot check like, hey. Can you send us a picture of your bars? It has never happened, but we we we do that.
Michael Mayer:They get discounts. They get first nibs, they get they can buy their bullion even cheaper than we're already selling it.
Tony Gryckiewicz:That's great. I love your energy, man. I love, I just I also love the fact that I've been somewhat responsible for you getting into all of this.
Michael Mayer:Yes. I I I wasn't sure if you remembered that.
Tony Gryckiewicz:No. I I I did. I do. I do. I'm I'm super psyched because I I just love seeing new business pop up.
Tony Gryckiewicz:People have business models. They they're very enterprising, and they create these ideas like the L Eleventhe Club. That is so cool. That is I was thinking as you're telling all this, I was thinking like, can I give people a percentage discount if they have a number of my business cards or something? Is there some way?
Tony Gryckiewicz:Because I always ship a business card with a coin whenever I sell it. Maybe I should include little like stamps like those subway, you know, where you used to put the sandwiches.
Michael Mayer:To get them to get to send your card back to me, you'll you'll you'll
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah.
Michael Mayer:Stamp it out? Something
Tony Gryckiewicz:like that. Something like that.
Michael Mayer:I'll help you with that.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Okay. Anyway, hey, dude. Hey. This has been super cool. I think it's been very informative for everybody.
Tony Gryckiewicz:I love to have I I we didn't even scratch the surface in terms of the questions I had about the market and all of this stuff, so we'll have to do another one. But I just wanna say thank you again for and Thank you. And where can people find you? So you do these Facebook Lives, but how can they find you on Facebook to So get part of first
Michael Mayer:of all, I do my Facebook Lives in the Element Exchange. The Element Exchange is a group you can join. If you need help, if need an invite, just reach out to me or Tony will direct you to us. We have our own business page on Facebook as well, which is Elemented Inc. Page is new.
Michael Mayer:We're still building it out. We don't have much of it. We don't have much of an Instagram presence, but Facebook is a great place to find me. My email address I can share is we can, you know, we can drop it in the chat or it's
Tony Gryckiewicz:or whatever.
Michael Mayer:M m m mayor at Elemented Inc. And you can reach out to me with any questions. If you ever have something you need help with, you can ask me for help. It's help is free. Just just let me know if if you have a question about something you own or a bar.
Michael Mayer:Hey. I saw this in the store. They wanted this. Does that seem reasonable to you? Happy to help you with that.
Michael Mayer:And and by by all means, please reach out to us. And thank you, Tony. It's been an absolute pleasure.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Cool. Alright, man. Have a good one, and I hope to see you at a show or or or something sometime soon. Alright?
Michael Mayer:You too, buddy. Take care.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Alright. See you.
