What Are Silver Bars?

Silver bars, put simply, are convenient, transportable forms of pure silver or silver alloys.

For most collectors, silver bars are solid purchases for saving money. When you purchase a silver bar, you exchange fiat currency for the value of the silver by weight. In doing this, your money is effectively always valuable — even if a particular fiat currency goes bust or the American stock market takes a dive, your silver will still be valuable.

Silver Bars vs. Silver Ingots

To better understand silver bars, you have to compare them to silver ingots.

A silver bar is, put simply, a refined version of a nugget. Silver bars comply with the Good Delivery specifications, which say that the silver weight of a silver bar has to be between 750 and 1,100 troy ounces. This is between 23 kilograms and 34 kilograms.

Furthermore, silver bars have to conform to dimensions to meet internationally recognized standards. To be a silver bar, a chunk of silver has to have the following:

• A height between 60 millimeters and 100 millimeters

• A top surface length between 250 millimeters and 350 millimeters

• A top surface of 110 millimeters and 150 millimeters

Silver bars are also stamped with serial numbers, assay stamps, fineness figures (which indicate the purity of the silver), and the year of manufacture.

What Are the Main Types of Silver Bars?

There are two types of silver bars you can purchase and collect or store in a bank or other secure facility. These include:

Poured or cast bars. These silver bars are created by pouring molten silver into a cast or mold with the correct shape. The molten silver cools down and solidifies, then weighed to ensure it has the right amount of pure silver. The final bar will be stamped with the name of the refiner, the gross weight, and the purity.

Minted or pressed bars. These bars are made with silver blanks or ingots, and they don’t have any markings. A stamping or pressing machine applies pressure to the blanks using a dye, which contains the right to design or stamp. Minted bars can be made quickly and cheaply since the silver doesn’t have to be heated up.

How To Determine the Purity of Silver Bars

The value of any silver bar, including a 10-ounce silver bar, depends on its purity. Silver fineness or purity is marked with the millesimal fineness system. For example, a 99.9% piece of silver will have 999 parts of silver for every 1,000 parts or material components. It’s represented with 999 fineness.

Sterling silver, which is the highest purity silver you can find for traditional silver jewelry, has 925 fineness. That means it’s 92.5% pure silver and 7.5% copper.

Most silver pieces, including bars and jewelry, are actually alloys. They include other materials that strengthen the silver and prevent it from tarnishing or rusting.

How To Calculate Ounces for Precious Metals

Silver and other precious metals are weighed and valued in troy ounces.

One troy ounce is equivalent to 31.1035 grams. It was originally used in Troyes, France, which is where it gets its name. The troy ounce is heavier than a regular ounce (or avoirdupois ounce), which is equivalent to 28.35 grams. The regular ounce is used for weighing most other materials, like sugar and salt.

Silver valuables and bars are usually priced based on their weight per troy ounce, not the weight per regular ounce.

What Is the Value of 10-Ounce Silver Bars?

Ten-ounce silver bars are almost entirely pure silver. In fact, for 10-ounce silver bars to be considered a precious metal to be used for precious metal IRAs, they must be .9999 pure silver. In other words, they are 99.99% pure silver, with only 0.01% of other elements like copper.

You can tell that a 10-ounce silver bar is 99.99% pure silver by looking for the stamp. These kinds of 10-ounce silver bars can be highly valuable, sometimes worth hundreds or thousands of dollars depending on the state of the economy at the time.

Why Do People Buy Silver Bars in 10 Ounces?

Silver bars and ingots are available in a variety of sizes and denominations. Some of the most common ounce denominations for silver bars include these:

• ½ ounce

• One ounce

• Five ounces

• 10 ounces

• 100 ounces

• 1,000 ounces

In addition, silver bars are sometimes produced in denominations of up to one kilogram.

But why the 10-ounce standard? Ten-ounce silver bars are easy to store and are hefty enough to have significant value individually (instead of, for example, one-ounce silver bars, which aren’t worth much by themselves). Ten-ounce silver bars can also be stacked and stored collectively easily. Again, this makes them perfect choices for buying in bulk and for storing your money safely.

What Are Some Examples of Valuable 10-Ounce Silver Bars?

Ten-ounce silver bars are produced and printed by many different manufacturers and companies. Some 10-ounce silver bars are extremely popular because of the quality of their facilities or their brand reputations.

Here are some examples:

Asahi Refining Silver Bars. These use simple branded designs for silver bars and are primarily based in North America.

Geiger Square Silver Bars. Silver bars from this company have images of its headquarters, a castle outside of Leipzig in Germany.

SilverTowne Prospector bars featuring the official logo of SilverTowne.

PAMP Suisse Lady Fortuna with a delicate and detailed design of the Roman goddess of fortune with a blindfold over her eyes.

PAMP Suisse Rosa with an elegant and simple design on the silver bar surface.

Texas Mint Silver Bars, which are technically minted ingots. These ingots have stamps of the interior of the Texas state capitol building’s dome printed on their surfaces.

In any case, you can do a lot of research and find 10-ounce silver bars with different designs, special features, and looks. This is a good way to customize your collection or purchase silver bars from companies that share your values.

Why Purchase 10-Ounce Silver Bars?

There are many good reasons to purchase 10-ounce silver bars, the most important of which is monetary security.

If you purchase precious metals with your hard-earned cash and retirement savings, for example, you can rest assured that those precious metals will remain valuable, even in times of economic uncertainty. If the stock market crashes, on the other hand, any money you put into companies or stocks could be at risk.

That’s why many Americans are increasingly putting their money into precious metals like silver bars. These can be stored in banks or even purchased and stored on your property.

You can get started finding your silver bars with American Hartford Gold. Even better, you can put your precious metals into a precious metal IRA. Think of it as an effective type of retirement account that uses insured precious metals instead of putting your money into stocks, bonds, and other market assets.

Still have questions? Get in touch with one of our representatives today to learn more.

Sources:

About Good Delivery | LBMA

Ingot Definition | Investopedia

Troy Ounce: Definition, History, and Conversion Table | Investopedia

Millesimal fineness | Chem Europe

What is sterling silver? | U.S. Geological Survey