Academy has a rich history having started their business in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1990, primarily doing smelting and refining. They produced bars in the 80s ranging in size from 5, 10, 25, and 100 oz bars. They were eventually acquired in 2010 by Brush Engineered Materials (Ohio based), which in turn became Materion (name change in 2011). Materion was acquired by Scottsdale Mint of Arizona in 2012. The pours below were thought to be poured in the 80’s -90’s era based on pour style. Below are some different styles from my collection.

This one has been a mystery to me and I continue to search for information on these special pieces. One of my collector friends and regular contributor to this site, Prashant K. has been acquiring fantastic pieces of late and shared two beautiful examples from Aurum. I decided not to wait and posting these in hopes that someone out there knows something about Aurum and can share some history with us. Thanks again to Prashant for sharing these!

There have been a number of highly collectible vintage pieces that use different variations of the “Scales” hallmark. To name a few, Dugan and Helterbrand, United States Smelting & Refining, and San Diego Refining.

Big boy!

Again, if anyone has any information, please reach out to me through the blog. Hope you enjoy these pics.

When it comes to Australian vintage bullion, there are the Big 3, Perth, Harringtons, and ABC. Hard for me to like one over the other, as they are all so beautiful. ABC has been around since 1972 and still in business today out of Melbourne, Victoria Australia. They are high premium ingots, but not to the level of Perth and Harringtons ingots. Regardless, these are absolute gems if you can find them. It’s taken me quite some time to assemble the following collection, which are all from my personal collection

Beautiful toning forming on reverse of the 100 gram ingots.

Here is a new update to the ABC Blog. A fellow collector in Australia, Bradley J. recently contacted me through the blog with a very rare and unique ABC 52.2 gram ingot. This is a stunning piece. Enjoy the pics and thank you Bradley!

Hope you enjoyed this blog entry. Comments are welcome. Would love to hear from like minded collectors.

I recently acquired a new piece from this old refiner that has a special place in my collection. The 22.54 oz is my favorite large bar in my collection. The hallmark is spectacular as is the shape, size, etc. Great in hand. ASR pieces are more commonly found in 10 oz class, but even 10’s don’t come up often. The 1 oz pieces carry the highest premium. I’m still looking for that 1 oz piece!

Here are a few additional examples of ASR ingots in different sizes and varieties. Thank you to Brian R. for sharing these.

Just a few goodies to share from the 5 oz class. Note the different shapes and sizes, types of molds, etc. All part of the fun of collecting. 5’s are primarily where I have focused my attention of late, but I have a fair amount of larger vintage pieces. We always say we are going to focus on one genre, but collecting silver ingots is highly addicting and it’s hard not to buy larger bars when you come across any vintage pieces. They are all drying up and getting harder and harder to find. Collector to collector transactions are where I’m finding the vast majority of my new additions. I can say this is true for at least the last 1-2 years.

Update to the “A” box is a nice family photo of 5 oz class American Credit Bar ingots.

There were many to choose from, but these 10’s pictured are far from common and have really cool hallmarks. Hope you enjoy them.

Here’s a recent update to the 10 oz class “A” box that come from fellow collector Prashant K’s collection. American Coins is not one you often see. This bar has some killer pour lines on the reverse. Enjoy the pics.

Nice old chunky ingot. I’ve only come across a few of these.

You can’t talk about the “A” refiners without mentioning Alexander Westerfeld, which is also sometimes errantly referred to as Alexander Westerfall. The former president’s last name was Westerfeld, but somewhere along the line, the name was confused. This is a common problem that collectors run into. There is so much misinformation out there that we collectors are constantly updating our notes on refiners. AW was out of Mojave, CA an area known for refining back in the 70s. Here are a few examples for reference:

The 22 oz is absolutely one of my favorite bars. The swirl lines and overall condition are fantastic. Many of the surviving bars in this weight class tend to be beaten up. Not unexpected due to age and journey of the bar.

Agnon has the wildest backstory of any refiner on this site. Founded in 1979 in Pompano Beach, Florida by Paul Traficante, the company recovered silver from X-ray film using sodium cyanide — and racked up pollution citations for dumping cyanide into storm drains. After a 1985 ownership change the violations kept coming: warehouse evacuations, five hospitalizations, contamination in the walls and soil, until regulators shut them down for good. The bars themselves are distinctive thick little pours, mostly sub-5 oz, with sequential serial numbers — the lowest-known weight is 4.2 oz.

There are so many old refiners that it’s really hard to keep track of. The way I do it is to store my ingots alphabetically and what better place to start than the good old letter “A.”

I’m going to kick this off with a few pics of some of my favorite old refiners in the “A” bucket.