I’ve always loved these unique 3 oz pieces that came from Kenneth and Freda Shonback, who had a shop on Clement St. in San Francisco in the 60’s. As the story goes these bars were made between 1966-1968 in various sizes — 3 oz, 7 oz, 1 lb, half kilo, and full kilo — all hand-poured .999 silver and put into wooden presentation boxes. They were well received by the market at the time and made their way into national magazines advertised as great investments. These have become very sought after and premiums have risen dramatically over the last few years. You’ll also see the name spelled “Shoneback” in some references.

Kingsmen is an older maker that you don’t see very often. They made a variety of sizes and styles, although information on this company is hard to come by. When found they are typically the 5 oz class extruded version pictured below. The Pure Silver mold is very scarce and pictured below. I have seen a few 10 oz poured examples and 1 oz silver rounds made by Kingsmen Silver. They are highly collectible pieces and command healthy premiums.

Keiffer ingots have been a mystery to many of us collectors, but one thing you can say, these are some of the most beautiful pieces out there. They command extremely high premiums today. I have been fortunate to own several pieces over the years and these pieces below are still in my collection today. They came in 1 oz (I’ll share pics of this in my “smalls” posts at a later date), 5 oz class, 10 oz class and 20+ oz. Most I have seen with the exception of the 1 oz piece are odd weights.

Here is a really cool 7 oz odd weight example from the collection of Brian R.