Silvertowne Silver Rounds
Silvertowne is another supplier of silver rounds to the eager buyers of today’s market, and has an intriguing history of its own as the change in demand shifted it from a gift and jewelry store with a few silver coins for sale into a major silver coin dealer and a private mint manufacturing its own rounds and ingots. The presence of so many suppliers assures the modern buyer that no matter what the fortunes of a specific company, there will always be another to fill their demand.
Silvertowne is an interesting case because it is a retail store which has expanded to the point of becoming a private minting company, although it is still a retail gift store as well which offers a large number of other items beside precious metals. The store features palatial details that exhibit its success, including a custom made oak staircase from Wisconsin and a large Czechoslovakian crystal chandelier.
The largest sign of its success is the firm’s ability to mint its own bullion, however. This is not a project to be undertaken lightly or with limited resources. The rounds are sold both by the company itself and various online precious metal dealers such as APMEX.
Silvertowne Silver Rounds Available Today
Like APMEX, Silvertowne offers several designs based on American coinage from the 19th and early 20th centuries, though these are sufficiently different from the actual coins to prevent confusion (as, for example, due to the lack of any face value on the rounds, which makes them rounds rather than coins). All of these rounds are 99.9% pure silver, are beautiful strikings, and include a deep mirror finish in the manner of proof coins to enhance their attractiveness to investors.
There are currently three types of Silvertowne silver rounds, though the company could produce more at any time, since it is not tied to any official production schedule. All three are one troy ounce in weight, making them equivalent to a standard government bullion coin in weight and quantity of fine silver. One is based on the Morgan dollar, with its chubby profile effigy of Liberty; another is a Liberty Eagle design whose obverse bears a bald eagle with curiously looping wings; and the third is a Liberty design from the 1804 silver dollar, which features a stylized but youthful and attractive Liberty in profile.
The reverse of the rounds bears the inscription “The King of American Coins – Copy” in order to establish without a doubt that the rounds are rounds and not an attempt to counterfeit legal tender.
An eagle whose body is covered by an American shield, and whose talons bear the arrows of war and the olive branch of peace, appears on the back. A ribbon in the bird’s beak declares “Dexter Hendrickson” for the names of the business’ founders.
History of Silvertowne
Silvertowne was founded in 1949, in the years immediately following the war. Coins and other precious metal items were originally a tiny fraction of the business, which is perhaps unsurprising given the ill repute that collectible coins suffered from at the time. Issues of commemorative coins had reached a nadir during the period, as they were made with various gimmicks intended to increase their appeal to collectors – gimmicks which simultaneously eroded their serious numismatic value.
As the silver coin market rebounded over the succeeding decades, so too did Silvertowne’s sales of bullion grow. Unlike many silver suppliers, which have experienced explosive growth from a large beginning, or whose history has been littered with troubles, oddities, and even occasional scandals, Silvertowne’s story has been that of a strong but smooth advance: the growth of a successful family retail business that has found a comfortable market and made the most of it.
Today, Silvertowne sells American Silver Eagles and other official government coins, as well as striking its own extensive range of silver rounds and silver bars. The company may not be as vast as APMEX or as glamorous as Credit Suisse, but it is a solid, reliable source for silver bullion that is very popular among collectors, especially those in the United States.
