12/7/12 Report - Silver Ingots & US Coin Price Web Site

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Silver Find That I've Shown Before For ID

You've seen a silver ingot or silver scale weight that I posted before if you've been reading this blog very long.  It was found one of our beaches, but I don't know where it came from or how old it is.  The consensus is pretty evenly divided between those two identities - ingot or scale weight.   I'm not convinced either way.

Anyhow the current Western and Numismatic auction that I mentioned yesterday has a lot of silver ingots listed.  It also has a lot of bank notes, which is something I mentioned a few days ago too, but I thought it would be instructive to take a look at some of the ingots since they have such a nice variety to study.  The one limitation is that they are mostly from Arizona and pretty much the same time period.

Below are some round silver ingots similar in shape to the one I've shown for ID. That seems to be a common enough shape even though many are in the shape of bars. The one above seems to be more purposely shaped than the others, showing a rim.   But the one above is also smaller and has a more precise weight than the assay samples in the auction.  It has a 10 gram weight, while the smaller ones in the auction are mostly near one ounce, but not exactly.  That to me tends to support the scale weight ID argument.

As you can see from these examples, the ingots in the auction vary quite a bit in the amount of information imprinted on the ingot.



Silver Ingot

Unmarked Silver Ingots



  The one on the left above is near one ounce, but not exactly.

Small US Mint Ingot

The ingot at the right is from the US mint.  It is thought that it was octagonal.  Just an interesting example.

There are many more silver ingots in the auction, as well as some gold ingots.  Also more gold nuggets. 

I always like to browse through auctions listings to see what is out there and how much it brings.

Familiarity with a broad range of objects can help improve your detecting success.  I've told before how I wish I would have recognized some objects that I dug and how that would have helped.



Here is a great web site for finding the value of US coins.   It is exceptionally well organized and has good photos to help you grade your coins.  

http://www.coinstudy.com



The wind is from the southeast.  That tends to build the beaches, except where there is some obstacle to the natural flow of sand.

The surf is around 3 - 4 feet today, decreasing this weekend, and down to 1 -2 feet early next week.

Low tide is around 8 AM this morning.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net