In reality it should have been named the Gold State as everything that goes up must come down (Issac Newton theory), so as it goes Gold was discovered in California and started the gold rush of 1848 with the snow melting and the rivers flowing gold were discovered coming from Nevada, as now the 3 largest places for gold is Australia, Africa, and Nevada in the United States, at Winnemucca, and Elko and surrounding areas in northern Nevada.

As all the miners were looking for gold they overlooked the silver. The Comstock mine was found and a claim was made after the black substance that was assayed was found to be silver, Discovered by Mr. Hearst later started a newspaper in San Francisco.


      

 On with the silver in the 1870's with silver having been discovered what to do with it. Senators from Nevada went to federal government to use this for coins, silver dollars and other coins ie Carson City dollars, which are the most sought after Morgan dollars. Carson City Mint is now a museum and a wonderful place to visit, I personally have been there many times. Carson City was named after Kit Carson, Frontiersman, Indian Scout, U.S. silver dollars Morgan, Peace are 90% silver or .900 fine silver. U.S American Eagales are .999 pure silver 1 oz so depending on the grade and year how much more value, over bullion price. U.S American Eagles Proof this is nor a grade this is the way they are made; we will explain further on page. .999 silver Bullion made in all shapes and sizes most are ingot(bars) or rounds(medallions) from same sizes of 1/10 ounce to 1000 ounce bricks. Spot price: is a 1000 oz brick at New York price (not delivered) this is how silver price is spot to get silver from ground to smelters to have a product that can be sold. Investment silver: large mints buy these 1000 ozbricks including the federal Government at spot price, Privat mints Englehard, J/M, Refco/Simmons, Rarity Mint... we didn't name them all. Strike or mint their bars or rounds so if you take a 1000 oz brick and make 10 100 oz bars the mint has a smaller cost in this bar. If you take the 1000 and make 10oz bars they will have 100 to sell and price a little higher. The smaller the size the more money and time are involved. Art Bars came out in 1969 some little before that, but more demand around 1972 and they sold for $3.50 to $4.00 each and you could have just about anything on those little bars, Trains (general) came in 2 versions as 1 was an error. They made alboms for your art bars and thos cute little bars looked so nice in those pages. 1979-1980 over $50 a ounce (I was there in that run) silver was climbing as it is today back then the names they had the silver market was Horence and Bunker Hunt otherwie known as the Hunt Bros, oilmen from Texas. The price steadily climbed as the price went up, more sold those cute little art bars, coins, silverware, forks, spoons, knives had weight but were paid less because the blade had to be seperated from silver so the silver was only in the handle. A lot of those are bars were melted down so mintages that are listed in the silver art bars guide book by Archie Kidd 1-5 Editions are not really accurate now as so many were melted. Crown Beauties 5,000 were made hard set to find Holiday Beauties they made an album that had all 24 in 1 set real rare. Most of the art here are 1 oz, look close some say 15 or 20 grams as a ounce is 31.1 grams. Some art bars or rounds they made only a few ie The Lone Ranger had only 20 made, as there is plenty of money that goes into making those art bars engravers, mold, dies, and supplies, dealers. Kirk Silver ..925 Sterling rare set 12 piece 2.3 ounce for each piece .925 is 92.5% pure silver. 1965-1969 Kennedy Halves 40% silver the only Kennedy half that was .90% for circulation was the 1964. There is 720 ounces of silver in a $1000.00 bag high grade. There is 710-720 for circulated silver why the difference wear, so uncirculated common coins have a higher price (illegal to melt U.S coins) Silver dollars have more of a premium in bags, the more you have the more dealers pay, as you want to turn in $1000.00 bags to smelter as they pay more time is money. Clad coinage has been around since 1965 also called sandwich coins when you look at edge you can see the copper, as is cheaper for the mint to make clad coinage and still looks the same with silver coating. Silver-clad 100 mils.(if silver was $10 a ounce we ould not have silver clad) the higher silver goes the more clad we sell, and looking at them side by side it is hard to tell this difference-clad does say 100 mils pure silver we will have images on this page to show differences between art bars, medallions, and rounds. This is how these are made base metal ie coper, nickel with 100 mils applied over base metla then art bar, ingot or round is struck. These look real nice, they are pure .999 silver over a base metal, bottom line these are nice to look at, but you will  not be able to melt these down for silver, 100 mils is a lot nicer than silver-plate as silver-plate has only 3-6 mils applies after item is finished and that silver can peel. Silver/plate this is were you have a item ie a 8 piece serving set and is silver-plated this is made...then silver-plate applied after plate, coin medallion, ingot is made. As earlier silver was .925 or 700 fine this was the cheapest way to make this set. Still looked nice, but you could not melt down for silver. Silver can be used for a lot of different applications Photographic Industry, Wiring(Silver is the most effective for this since it is the strongest conductor of electricity in the world), healing, precious metal, coins, bullion, art bars. We will be adding more information to this page and all of our other websites.

                                           REFCO COINS