![]() The first series she bought was the bird plates, "because my husband liked to watch the birds so much." Then she bought silver ingots and medals. Instead she signed up for more Franklin Mint issues. I wanted to go through the barrels and get those beautiful things." Instead, of selling her silver to be melted down in late 78, as some people did and are doing still, Ursula Reburn said, "I could have cried to see those pretty things melted down on the CBS show. ![]() They are designed to compete with the better-known krugerrand, a South Africian coin, and the Gold Maple Leaf coin sold by the Canadian government. The 1-ounce, 1/2- ounce and 1/4-ounce 24-carat coins are sold not for their collectible value but for their bullion content. Andes, chairman of the board, said: "It's not so much that we are deemphasizing coins and medals as we are emphasizing other things."Īn exception has been Franklin Mint's new gold coin. Whereas three or so years ago the business was 80 percent coins and medals, today are 20 percent of the sales are numismatic. ![]() So last year the Franklin Mint began to diversify. In 1978, the Franklin Mint sales of numismatic products sagged after a barrage of what they considered unjustifiable criticism. Obviously, if you'd bought silver tablewear at the same time, it would have gone up in value equally - and you could have eaten with it. Now, regardless of what you think of the objects as art, the sterling pieces are worth five or six times what the buyers paid for them because of their bullion value. Some people collect comic books and fence wire. There are, of course, some dealers who sell nothing but contemporary "limited edition" plates and collectables. Some art and antique collectors still turn up their noses at mass manufactured so-called "art objects." The major auction houses and antique dealers still do not sell the current crop. And many critics questioned their artistic value. The commercial mint objects were usually mass-produced items. The criticism was that people were buying the series for investments, after reading about the large increases in values of antiques, rare coins and one-of-a-kind art works. Critics sneered at "instant collectibles." And the "limited editions" always were written with quotation marks, with the thought that the editions were often limited by how many could be sold. Thus the ingotset that sold for $515 in 1970 for 104 ounces of silver now could bring somewhere in the neighborhood of $3,000.Ībout a year or so ago, in some circles it was popular to poke fun at people who signed up for the Silver plates and coin series of Franklin Mint and the other commercialmints. She and other like her who held on to their silver so-called "limited editions" may have the last laugh on those who though them unsophisticated in investing.įranklin Mint silver ingots, which sold for roughly $5 an ounce in 1970, are now worth somewhere between $35 and $40, depending on the current silver fluctations. Reburn is one of the people who didn't melt down her Franklin Mint silver plates and medallions back in 1978 and some newspapers and CBS critized the "instant collectibles" craze. She has five children, 10 grandchildren and a large collection of Franklin Mint silver and other objects. URSULA REBURN is a nice widow lady who used to teach the third grade.
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