Photo Credit: CAGoldandSilver
10 Troy Oz. Vintage MSC Silver Bar
Buy It Now Price: $269.99 (price as of 2018; item no longer available)
Pros:
-This vintage poured 10 troy ounce MSC silver bar from the 1970s or early 1980s has a classic loaf shape, making it highly desirable among antique silver bar collectors.
-The dimensions of this old MSC silver bar are 2.68 inches (68 mm) long by 1.06 inches (27 mm) wide by 0.67 inches (17 mm) high.
-Poured vintage silver bars have a wonderfully rugged, slightly irregular appearance that is quite attractive. Minted between the 1960s and the 1980s, antique silver bars have recently become a booming numismatic niche.
-This 1970s era MSC silver bar only costs $27 per troy ounce, which is an excellent price for such a fine specimen. You will generally have a tough time finding 5 and 10 troy oz sizes for less than $30 an ounce. And the smaller 1, 2 and 3 oz bars are even more expensive on a per ounce basis.
-MSC silver bars have been verified to exist in 5, 10, 25 and 50 troy ounce sizes, in addition to some odd-weight variations. Unfortunately, no other information about this now defunct precious metal fabrication company is currently available. We don’t even know what the initials MSC stand for! Hopefully future research will remedy this situation.
-Antique silver bars are a great alternative to traditional bank products like CDs, savings accounts or savings bonds. Old silver bars allow you to stack wealth in a tangible form, while also adding return potential in the form of increasing collector’s value over time.
-The seller has multiple bars available. This might not seem important at first glance. But in the world of vintage silver bars, once a specimen sells, it can take months, or even years of frustration while searching for another one like it. The fact that the seller has several MSC silver bars for sale means that even if you’re just stumbling across this web page a year or two after it was originally posted, there’s still a chance that one is in stock.
-These vintage bars are getting harder and harder to find as the decades pass. This is because each time the price of silver spikes higher (as it last did in 2011), more of these classic bars find their way into the melting pot, never to be seen again.
-This MSC silver bar is a compelling alternative investment at a buy-it-now price of only $270. For those of you on a tighter budget, I featured a less expensive 5 troy ounce Jackson Precious Metals vintage silver bar in a previous Spotlight post.
Cons:
-You generally get better value for your money in slightly larger vintage silver bullion bars. Right now it is possible to pick up 20 and 25 troy ounce bars, as well as kilo (32.15 oz.) bars, for $20 to $30 a troy ounce, which is a stunning bargain. However, I suspect this situation will be fleeting as the increasing popularity of these antique silver bars inexorably pushes prices up.
-Currently the spot price of silver is only about $14.25 an ounce, so you are paying a premium of almost 90% over this MSC silver bar’s melt value. As the price of silver has declined this year, the value of vintage silver bars has not tended to decline with it. This is either good news if you already own older silver bars or bad news if you are looking to buy more. For those who want to pay prices closer to intrinsic value, modern artisan hand-poured silver bars may be an intriguing alternative.
Read more fascinating Antique Sage spotlight posts here.
-or-
Read in-depth Antique Sage investment guides here.
